…or the states of His servants; nor, in their view, does He possess multitudes of angels who descend to Him and ascend from Him. To Him, they say, neither good words rise nor righteous deeds. The highest ambition of souls, according to them, is simply to become joined to the Active Intellect, which they regard as their lord; the souls do not ascend to Allah.

And when they declare, “The soul’s happiness is to witness and behold Allah,” what they really intend is the soul’s knowledge of the absolute notion of existence, or of the existence of the Necessary Being. Thus the author of al-Kutub al-Maḍnūn Bi-hā ʿalā Ghayr Ahlihā, when he speaks of beholding the Truth and seeing His Face in his Iḥyāʾ or elsewhere, says: “In the end, what is meant is the rational soul’s recognition of its Lord.” That, for them, is the reality of “vision,” as has been explained in more than one place.

The first principles they adopted from the sayings of those who negate and strip away the divine attributes forced them into these corrupt beliefs, as has been detailed elsewhere. How, then, could the theoretical wisdom that Allah and His Messenger have enjoined ever accord with the “wisdom” of such people?

Their misguidance in denying Allah’s knowledge and other attributes, and its refutation: We have already set out at length the invalidity of their position regarding the divine knowledge and other attributes, and have exposed the premises that compelled them to utter such statements—statements which rank among the gravest fabrications against Allah.