The First Doctrine:
The doctrine of Ibn ʿArabī, author of Fusūs al-Hukm.

Although this doctrine constitutes unbelief, he is the closest of them to Islam, because his writings contain much that is sound, and because he does not adhere as firmly as the others to the doctrine of identity between Creator and creation. Rather, he wavers considerably in it. He merely follows his expansive imagination, which sometimes pictures truth and sometimes falsehood. Allah knows best what belief he held when he died.

His doctrine rests on two principles:

The first: that a nonexistent thing has an established reality in nonexistence, in agreement with those among the Muʿtazilah and the Rāfidah who maintained this view.

The first to introduce this doctrine into Islam was Abū ʿUthmān al-Shahhām, the teacher of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbā’ī. Groups of innovating Qadariyyah among the Muʿtazilah and the Rāfidah followed him in this. They maintain that every nonexistent thing whose existence is possible has its reality, essence, and individual identity established in nonexistence. For, were these not established, there would be no distinction between what is known and spoken of and what is not known and spoken of. Nor would it be possible to intend to bring something into existence, since intention requires distinction, and distinction is possible only with respect to something established.

Yet these people, although they introduced this doctrine—which is false in itself—and have been declared unbelievers