All these ideas are the teachings of the author of al-Fusūs. Allah Most High knows best what beliefs the man held when he died. May Allah forgive all Muslim men and women and all believing men and women, both living and dead.

“Our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith, and put no resentment in our hearts towards those who believe. Our Lord, indeed You are Kind and Merciful.”

The point is that the actual content of al-Fusūs—which is attributed to the Prophet, may Allah Most High bless him and grant him peace, with the claim that he brought it—is such that, once a Muslim understands it, he knows with absolute certainty that all the prophets and messengers, all the friends of Allah and the righteous, and indeed even all ordinary adherents of the religious communities—Jews, Christians, and Sabians—disavow before Allah Most High even part of this doctrine. How much more, then, its entirety!

We know that idol-worshipping polytheists and unbelievers among the People of the Book acknowledge the existence of the Maker, the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner, who created the heavens and the earth and brought darkness and light into being—their Lord and the Lord of their forefathers, the Lord of the East and the West. None of them says that He is identical with created beings or is Himself the things He has made, as these people say. They even say that if the heavens and the earth ceased to exist, the reality of Allah would cease to exist.

This doctrine is composed of two premises:

The first is that a nonexistent thing is an entity established in nonexistence, as many of the Muʿtazilah and the Rāfidah maintain. This doctrine is refuted by reason that accords with the Book, the Sunnah, and consensus. Many speculative theologians who affirm the divine attributes—such as al-Qādī Abū Bakr—have declared anyone who holds this view an unbeliever.