Section

Their foundational premise is that the existence of created beings and things—even the existence of jinn, devils, unbelievers, the wicked, dogs, pigs, impurities, unbelief, wickedness, and disobedience—is identical to the existence of the Lord, rather than distinct from Him and separate from His Essence, even if created by Him, subject to His lordship, fashioned by Him, and subsisting through Him.

Yet they perceive differentiation and multiplicity among existing things, evident to both the senses and reason. They therefore needed a unification that would eliminate multiplicity and a unity that would remove differentiation, despite the reality of that multiplicity. In their confusion, they arrived at three doctrines. I shall explain these to you, even though some of them do not clearly explain either their own doctrine or that of others, because their apprehension and conception of the truth are incomplete.