and fasts, goes hungry, stands, sleeps, suffers diseases and illnesses, is afflicted by enemies, undergoes trials, and endures severe hardship. They have stated this explicitly. They have also explicitly stated that whenever distress afflicts souls, it is He who suffers that distress, and that when He relieves distress, He is merely relieving Himself of it. For this reason, some of these people—who are among the most unbelieving of Allah’s creatures and the greatest in hypocrisy, heretical deviation, rebellion against Allah, and obstinate opposition to Him—disapproved of a person patiently enduring affliction, because, according to them, He is both the afflicted one and the one who inflicts affliction.

They have explicitly stated that He is characterized by every imperfection and defect, since there is no one besides Him who can be characterized by imperfections and defects. Thus, every defect, imperfection, disbelief, and sinfulness in the world characterizes Him, and no one else is characterized by it. All of them agree on this with regard to existence. The author of al-Fusūs (The Bezels) then says that this is established in nonexistence, whereas others say that nothing exists but the existence of the Real, who is characterized by these defects and failings.

(Fifth)

According to them, those who worshipped al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt, the third and last; those who worshipped Wadd, Suwā‘, Yaghūth, Ya‘ūq, and Nasr; those who worshipped Sirius, the star, the sun, and the moon; those who worshipped the Messiah, Ezra, and the angels; and all others who worshipped idols and images—among the people of Noah, ‘Ād, Thamūd, Pharaoh’s people, the Children of Israel, and all the Arab polytheists—worshipped none but Allah. It is inconceivable, according to them, that they should worship anyone other than Allah. They have stated this explicitly in many places, such as the words of the author of al-Fusūs in the chapter on the Word of Noah: