and the message with which He sent His messengers, and His speaking to Moses and others.

A number of people versed in speculative theology, philosophy, and the forms of Sufism associated with them have gone astray in this matter, including Ibn Sabʿīn, al-Sadr al-Qūnawī—the disciple of Ibn ʿArabī—al-Balyānī, and al-Tilimsānī. The latter was among their most accomplished in learning and understanding. He openly put the doctrine into practice, drinking wine and committing forbidden acts.

A trustworthy man told me that he had studied Ibn ʿArabī’s Fusūs al-Hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom) under him, believing it to contain the words of Allah’s friends who possessed knowledge of Him. But when he read it, he found that it contradicted the Quran. He said: “I told him, ‘These words contradict the Quran.’ He replied, ‘The Quran is all polytheism; monotheism is found only in our words.’” He also used to say: “Through unveiling, we have established things that contradict the plain dictates of reason.”

Someone who had accompanied him and another man like him told me that the two passed a dead, mangy dog on the road near Dār al-Tuʿm. His companion asked him: “Is this, too, the very essence of Allah?” He replied: “Is there anything outside it? Yes, everything is within His essence.”

The true substance of these people’s doctrine is Pharaoh’s doctrine. But Pharaoh feared no one such that he would need to conceal his beliefs from him, so he did not acknowledge the Creator, although inwardly he affirmed Him and knew that he himself was nothing but a created being. But his love of supremacy in the land and of wrongdoing