and as the faculties of the soul are part of the soul; whereas idol worshippers acknowledged that their idols were other than Him and were created. These people are also greater in unbelief in that the Arab idol worshippers acknowledged that the heavens and the earth had a Lord distinct from them who created them. These people, however, hold that the heavens, the earth, and all other created things have no Lord distinct from them; rather, the creation itself is the Creator. For this reason, he declared that the people of ‘Ād and other disbelievers were on a straight path, placed them at the very heart of nearness to Allah, and claimed that the inhabitants of Hell enjoy themselves there just as the inhabitants of Paradise enjoy themselves in Paradise.

It is an indisputably established teaching of Islam that the peoples of ‘Ād and Thamūd, Pharaoh and his people, and all the other disbelievers whose stories Allah has recounted are enemies of Allah; that they will be punished in the Hereafter; and that Allah has cursed them and is angry with them. Whoever praises them and counts them among those brought near to Allah and those who enjoy bliss is, in this respect, greater in unbelief than the Jews and Christians.

This fatwa cannot accommodate a detailed exposition of these people’s statements and an explanation of their unbelief and heresy. They are of the same kind as the esotericist Qarmatians and the Ismā‘īlīs, who were greater in unbelief than the Jews and Christians. Their doctrine entails disbelief in all the revealed Books and Messengers. As Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Ja‘barī said after meeting Ibn ‘Arabī—the author of this book:

“I found him to be a filthy shaykh who denies every Book Allah has revealed and every prophet Allah has sent.”