heretics, they make the same claims as al-Tilimsānī, one of their number and the most adept exponent of their monism. When al-Fusūs was read to him, he was told, “The Quran contradicts your Fusūs.”

He replied, “The entire Quran is polytheism; only our teachings affirm Allah’s oneness.”

He was asked, “If existence is one, why is a wife lawful and a sister forbidden?”

He replied, “To us, all is lawful. But these veiled people said, ‘It is forbidden,’ so we said, ‘It is forbidden to you.’”

Besides its enormous unbelief, this is plainly self-contradictory. If existence is one, who is veiled, and who imposes the veil?

Thus, one of their shaykhs said to his disciple, “Whoever tells you that anything other than Allah exists in the universe has lied.”

His disciple replied, “Then who is it that lies?”

They told another person, “These are loci of manifestation.”

He asked them, “Are the loci of manifestation other than that which is manifest, or are they identical? If they are other, you have affirmed a relation; if they are identical, there is no distinction.”

Elsewhere, we have discussed at length the exposure of these people’s secrets and explained the true nature of each one’s position. We explained that the author of al-Fusūs holds that the nonexistent is a thing and that the existence of the Real governs it. He thus distinguishes between existence and subsistence.

The Mu‘tazilites who said that the nonexistent is a thing subsisting outside the mind, despite their misguidance, are better than he is. They said that the Lord created, for these things subsisting in nonexistence, an existence distinct from His own. This man, however, claimed that the Lord’s very existence emanated upon it, so there is no