they hold him in high esteem—and these men dabble in philosophy. One of them rejoices when he is told, “You are not a Muslim.” He recounts of himself—as Ahmad al-Mārdīnī, one of Ibn ʿArabī’s associates, used to recount of himself—that he entered a Christian monastery to obtain food for himself and his companion. One of the Christians began speaking about the Muslims, saying, “They say such-and-such.” Another told him, “Do not speak against the Muslims, for this man is one of them.” The speaker replied, “Does this man have the face of a Muslim?”—meaning that he was not a Muslim. Al-Mārdīnī would recount how the Christian had said of him, “This man is not a Muslim,” rejoicing at the Christian’s words and affirming what he said: namely, that he was not a Muslim.

Those who dabble in philosophy state this explicitly. They say, “We say such-and-such, while the Muslims say such-and-such.” Sometimes they say, “We say this, while the adherents of religious faiths say that”—meaning the Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Their books are full of this. When among the adherents of a religious faith, each of them must follow their religion. Yet their participation in this is like their involvement in the political affairs of kings, as when they were with the unbelieving Turks, with Hülegü, king of the unbelieving Mongols, and with the Khan, who ranked above him, the successor of Genghis Khan in the lands of Khitā. For one of them there, affiliation with Islam means affiliation with a form of Islam acceptable to that