of these men claiming that prophethood can be acquired, that he no longer needs the Messenger, or that someone other than the Messenger may be superior to him. They may also claim that Allah’s speech to Moses was of this kind: that He spoke to him only from the heaven of his own intellect; that the voice he heard was within his own soul; that he heard the meaning emanating from the active intellect; or that one of them may attain the station of Moses.
Some even claim to rise above Moses, saying: “Moses heard the speech through the sounds within his soul, whereas we hear it free of those sounds.”
Some of these men claim that Gabriel, who descended to Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, is the luminous image that takes shape within his soul, just as an image takes shape within the soul of a sleeper. They claim that Muhammad received the Quran from this image, which they call Gabriel. Hence Ibn ʿArabī, the author of al-Fusūs (The Bezels) and al-Futūhāt al-Makkiyyah (The Meccan Openings), said that he receives from the very source from which the angel who conveys revelation to the Messenger receives. He claimed that the station of “prophethood” is below closeness to Allah and above “messengership.” According to their false claim, Muhammad receives from this image within the soul—which he called an angel—whereas he himself receives from the immaterial intellect from which that image receives.
Furthermore, these men do not affirm that Allah truly possesses speech as an attribute, nor do they affirm that He intended to convey meaning to any particular individual. Indeed, they may say that He does not know any particular individual, for His knowledge