created existence distinct from the Creator’s existence, in his view. His companion, al-Sadr al-Qūnawī, distinguishes between the absolute and the particular. Being closer to philosophy, he did not acknowledge that the nonexistent is a thing; instead, he identified the Real with absolute existence and composed Miftāh ghayb al-jamʿ wa-l-wujūd.

This position goes even further in negating the Creator and His existence. For the absolute, conditioned by absoluteness—the intellectual universal—exists only in minds, not in concrete reality. As for the absolute without any condition—the natural universal—even if it is said to exist externally, it exists externally only as a particular. According to those who affirm its external existence, it is part of that particular. It therefore follows that the Lord’s existence either has no external reality, is part of the existence of created beings, or is identical with their existence. Does a part create the whole, or does a thing create itself? Does nonexistence create existence? Or can part of a thing be the creator of the whole?

These people avoid the term “indwelling,” because it entails something that indwells and a locus in which it dwells. They also avoid the term “union,” because it entails two things, one uniting with the other, whereas, according to them, existence is one.

They say: “The Christians became unbelievers only because they singled out the Messiah as being Allah. Had they extended this to all, they would not have become unbelievers.”

Likewise, they say of idolaters: “They erred only because they worshipped some