Ibn Arabī, the author of The Bezels of Wisdom and The Meccan Openings; for this reason, he claimed that he received from the same source from which the angel receives—the angel through whom revelation is conveyed to the prophets—whereas, in his view, a prophet receives from the angel through whom revelation is conveyed to the messengers. This is because, in his view, a prophet receives from the images that take shape within his own soul when intelligible meanings (1) are represented to him in forms of the imagination (2). Those forms (3), in his view, are the angels, and he claims that they receive from his abstract intellect before becoming images in the imagination. Hence, he ranks sainthood above prophethood and says:

“The station of prophethood lies in an intermediate realm,
Just above the messenger, yet beneath the saint.”

According to his corrupt principle, the saint receives from Allah without any intermediary, because he receives from his own intellect; and, in their view, this is what it means to receive from Allah without an intermediary (4), since they acknowledge no angels existing apart who descend with revelation (5), and in their view the Lord is not a being distinct