one god. For this reason, Allah sometimes describes them in the Quran as associating partners with Him, and sometimes places them in a category distinct from the polytheists: they affirm both positions, despite their contradiction.

Such is also the condition of these people. They wish to affirm union and maintain that nothing other than Him exists, while also affirming the existence of the world. They therefore locate the world's subsistence in His knowledge, with Him witnessing it, and hold that He manifests Himself to what He witnesses. When He manifests Himself in it, He alone is the one manifesting Himself, and those witnessed entities are the world.

This man and Ibn Arabī agree on this, but differ in another respect. Ibn Arabī says:

“The existence of the Real appeared in the entities that are fixed in themselves. If you wish, you may say that it is the Real; if you wish, you may say that it is creation; if you wish, you may say that it is the Real and creation; if you wish, you may say that it is neither the Real in every respect nor creation in every respect; and if you wish, you may profess bewilderment concerning this.”

This man, however, says:

“The entities witnessed by Him became manifest.”

Thus, concerning all creation, both have said something resembling what the Melkite Christians say concerning Christ: that the divine nature and the human nature became one substance with two hypostases. Al-Tilimsānī, however, affirms no multiplicity whatsoever. He thus resembles the Jacobite Christians, who are the most extreme of them in unbelief. The Christians maintained this concerning a single person, saying:

“The divine nature clothes itself in the human nature after previously not having been clothed in it.”