reject Ibn Arabī’s statements, demonstrate their falsity, and refute him; and that al-Asbahānī saw him with one of Ibn Arabī’s books and said to him:

“If you acquire any of his books, do not come to me”—or words to that effect.

He also related that when Ibn Wāsil mentioned Ibn Arabī’s account of the apple that had been transformed from a houri, with whom he spoke or had intercourse, he said:

“By Allah, besides whom there is no deity, he is lying.”

Indeed, his oath was truthful.

Our companion, the learned and distinguished Abū Bakr ibn Sālār, related to me from Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Daqīq al-Īd—the leading shaykh of his time—from Imam Abū Muhammad ibn Abd al-Salām, that when he arrived in Egypt, they asked him about Ibn Arabī. He replied:

“An evil shaykh, a reprehensible liar, who professes the eternity of the world and considers no sexual union unlawful.”

Taqī al-Dīn used to say, “He has a vivid imagination.” More than one Egyptian jurist who had heard Ibn Daqīq al-Īd’s words related this to me.

Ibn Buhayr related to me from Rashīd al-Dīn Saīd and others that he said:

“He regarded lying as permissible. That is the best that can be said of him.”

The learned shaykh and man of spiritual insight, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Marāghī, the leading shaykh of his time, related to me that when he arrived and heard these people’s statements concerning divine oneness, he said:

“I read some of their writings to al-Afīf al-Tilimsānī and found them contrary to the Book and the Sunnah. When I mentioned this to him, he said, ‘The Quran contains no affirmation of divine oneness; rather, the entire Quran consists of associating partners with Allah. Whoever follows the Quran will never attain divine oneness.’ I said to him, ‘What distinction do you make between a wife, an unrelated woman, and a sister? Are they all one and the same?’ He replied: