As for what they truly believe, in their view he had always been one who knows Allah; indeed, they hold that he is Allah. Nor, in their view, is there any Fire involving pain whatsoever, as we shall explain concerning them, Allah willing. This should, however, alert us to the fact that religious innovations are places where hypocrisy is to be expected, just as observances of the Sunnah are emblems of faith.
The author of al-Fusūs, in the chapter on the wisdom contained in “The Word of Moses,” said, when discussing the words “What is the Lord of the worlds?”:
“Herein lies a great secret: he answered in terms of action someone who had asked for an essential definition. He thus made the essential definition identical with His relation to the forms of the world that appear through Him, or the forms of the world that appear within Him. It is as though, in answer to the question ‘What is the Lord of the worlds?’, he said: the One in whom the forms of the worlds appear—above, namely heaven, and below, namely earth—‘if you have certainty’; or the One who manifests through them.
When Pharaoh said to his companions, ‘He is indeed mad’—which, as we have explained concerning his being mad, means that knowledge of what I asked him about is veiled from him, since it is inconceivable that he should know it at all—Moses explained further, to show Pharaoh his own rank in divine knowledge, for he knew that Pharaoh understood this. He said:
‘Lord of the east and the west.’
Thus he invoked what appears and what is concealed: the Manifest and the Hidden.
‘And whatever is between them.’
This is expressed in His words:
‘He has knowledge of all things.’
‘If you use reason’—that is, if you are those who set bounds, for the intellect serves to set bounds.
The first answer is the answer addressed to those who possess certainty, who are the people of unveiling and wujūd. He therefore said to him, ‘If you have certainty’—that is, if you are people of unveiling and wujūd, then I have informed you of what you have ascertained through your unveiling and wujūd.