This is illustrated by his statement:

“He was manifest in me in the oneness of His essence, knowing Himself and what proceeds from Him. All objects of knowledge were unveiled within the reality of knowledge, and He witnessed them.”

He may be answered as follows:

His knowledge of what proceeds from Him, and of objects of knowledge other than Himself which He witnesses, has thus been affirmed. You then stated that He presented Himself to these cosmic realities, which were witnessed yet nonexistent. At that point, He expressed Himself as “I,” and the reality of prophethood appeared, in which the Real appeared clearly and absolute existence was reflected. You stated that this bears the name “the Most Merciful,” just as the former bears the name “Allah.”

You continued until you said: “He is now as He was.” Now, is that which He knew would proceed from Him, and which He witnessed while it was nonexistent in itself, the Real or something other than Him? If it is the Real, it follows that the Lord was nonexistent and proceeded from Himself. This is also self-contradictory. If it is something other than Him, you have made that other thing a mirror reflecting absolute existence, and identified it as the Most Merciful. Creation would therefore be the Most Merciful.

You are thus caught between holding that He knew something nonexistent which proceeded from Him—in which case there would be something other than Him, and that other would not be the Most Merciful—and holding that this being who manifests and describes Himself is identical with Him and is the Most Merciful, in which case it would neither be nonexistent nor proceed from Him. Alternatively, you ascribe to the same thing, at one time, the distinctive attributes of the Real, the Creator, and, at another, those of the servant, the creature. Besides being contradictory, this is among the gravest forms of disbelief. It resembles the Christians’ statement: “The divine nature is the human nature.” Yet this is more disbelieving in several respects.