and so he upholds commands, prohibitions, and religious laws as they stand, and enjoins adherence to many of the moral virtues and acts of worship prescribed by the spiritual masters. For this reason, many worshippers derive guidance for their spiritual conduct from his words and benefit from it, even though they do not understand his underlying doctrines. Whoever among them understands those doctrines and agrees with him has indeed understood his position.

(As for) his companion al-Sadr al-Rūmī, he was given to philosophizing and was therefore further removed from religious law and Islam. Hence the wicked al-Tilmisānī, known as al-ʿAfīf (the Chaste), used to say: “My former master was a mystic with philosophical leanings, whereas the other was a philosopher with mystical leanings”—meaning al-Sadr al-Rūmī. He had studied under him but had not met Ibn ʿArabī. In Miftāh Ghayb al-Jamʿ wa-l-Wujūd and other works, al-Rūmī says that Allah Most High is absolute and particular existence, just as a distinction is drawn between an animal considered in the absolute and a particular animal, and between a body considered in the absolute and a particular body. The absolute exists only in external reality as something absolute; the absolute exists only in concrete external entities.

His position therefore amounts to saying that Allah, glorified is He, has no existence whatsoever, no reality, and no established being other than the very existence subsisting in created beings. For this reason, he and his master say that Allah Most High does not see at all and that, in reality, He has neither name nor attribute. They explicitly declare that the very entities of the dog, the pig, urine, and excrement are identical with His existence—exalted is Allah above what they say.

(As for) the wicked al-Tilmisānī, he is the most vile of these people and the most deeply immersed in disbelief. He does not distinguish between existence and established being as Ibn ʿArabī does, nor does he distinguish between the absolute and the particular