These people, however, said that He is present throughout the entire world and has always been so. They thus held this to be universal and permanent, whereas the Christians held it to be particular and to have begun at a certain time. One of them even said: “The Christians disbelieved only because they restricted it.”
Ibn Arabī expressed this idea in several places in al-Fusūs. He stated that the prophets rebuked the idol worshippers only because they restricted their worship; otherwise, the knower who brings others to perfection is one who worships Him in every manifestation, and He is both the worshipper and the worshipped.
He further stated that, had the idol worshippers abandoned their worship, they would have abandoned the Real in proportion to the worship they abandoned; and that Moses rebuked Aaron only because Aaron had forbidden them to worship the calf, owing to Aaron’s narrow outlook and Moses’ knowledge that they had worshipped none but Allah. He also stated that Aaron was not given power over the calf so that they might worship Allah in every form; and that the greatest manifestation in which He was worshipped was desire, for nothing greater than desire has ever been worshipped.
Ibn Arabī, however, affirms entities fixed in nonexistence, whereas this man, Ibn Hamawayh, affirms them only as witnessed in His knowledge. This latter view is correct, but the union he sought cannot be established on that basis. Hence, of all of them, he was the furthest from establishing union and the closest to Islam, although he was the most contradictory and the most given to incoherent rambling. Much rambling, however, is better than much unbelief.
The implication of these words of his is that he made His existence conditional upon the existence of the world, even if He has some existence distinct from the world, just as the light of the eye is conditional upon the existence of the eyelids, even though it resides in the pupil. On this basis, Allah would depend upon the world and need it, just as the light of the eye needs