and pigs, urine, excrement, and every foul thing. Besides being false according to both reason and religious law, this claim is a lie and contradicts his own conduct. For if someone harmed him and caused him severe pain, he would hate that person and become his enemy; indeed, he would go to excess in harming him. A man’s passionate love for everything that exists is therefore rationally impossible and religiously forbidden.
The statement he attributes to one of them:
“The very thing you see is an essence you do not see, and an essence you do not see is the very thing you see,”
comes from Ibn Sab‘īn, one of the foremost proponents of polytheism, heresy, sorcery, and union with God. He was among their most accomplished and intelligent figures, and among those most knowledgeable about philosophy and the Sufism of those who profess philosophy.
Ibn ‘Arabī’s statement:
“His outward aspect is His creation, and His inward aspect is the Real,”
expresses the doctrine of divine indwelling. Yet he contradicts himself here, since he advocates oneness of existence. There can therefore be no two beings, one inward and the other outward. The distinction between existence and the entity itself has no basis in reality; rather, it is one of the claims of those given to lies and falsehood.
Ibn Sab‘īn’s statement:
“A sovereign Lord and a perishing servant—and you are that; Allah alone, and multiplicity is an illusion,”
accords with his corrupt premise that the existence of the created being is the existence of the Creator. This is why he said, “And you are that.” He declared the servant to be perishing—that is, to have no existence—so that only the Lord’s existence remained. Hence his statement, “And you are that.” Likewise, he said, “Allah alone, and multiplicity is an illusion,” since, according to his doctrine, nothing exists except Allah.
This is why he and his followers used to say in their remembrance:
“There is nothing but Allah,”
instead of the Muslims’ declaration:
“There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah.”