negative ones. This (1) is more deserving of nonexistence than that which has been qualified (2) by negating both positive and negative realities (3). It is also even more impossible, for an existent that shares existence with another is distinguished from it not by a negative attribute, but by a positive reality. Thus, if an existence is posited that is distinguished from others only by nonexistence, it would be even more impossible than an existence distinguished by negating both existence and nonexistence.
Moreover, this shares with all other existents in the designation “existence” but is distinguished from them by nonexistence, whereas they are distinguished from it by existence. According to their position, therefore, any possible existent one might posit would be more perfect than the Necessary Existent. This is [the very] height of [corruption] and disbelief (4).
And if they say that He is absolute without condition, as [al-Sadr] al-Qūnawī (5) and others like him say,
(1) N and M read: “and it is.”
(2) N alone reads: “It was said,” which is a textual corruption.
(3) N alone reads: “existential, but not non-existential,” which is erroneous. The phrase is repeated once more in N due to a copyist’s oversight.
(4) N and M read: “This is the utmost degree of disbelief.”
(5) “Al-Sadr” is omitted from N and M. He is Sadr al-Dīn Muhammad ibn Ishāq ibn Muhammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Alī al-Qūnawī al-Rūmī, one of the leading Sufis who affirmed *wahdat al-wujūd* (the unity of being) and an associate of Muhyī al-Dīn ibn Arabī. He died in 673 AH, though 672 AH is also reported. See his biography in al-Sha‘rānī, *al-Tabaqāt al-Kubrā*, 1:177; *al-A‘lām*, 6:254. See also Ibn Taymiyya’s discussion of him in *al-Sab‘īniyya*, included in *Majmū‘ al-Fatāwā al-Kubrā*, Kurdistan Scientific Press, Cairo, 1329 AH; and Dr. Abū al-Wafā al-Taftāzānī’s study of the Akbarian order, pp. 343–44, in *al-Kitāb al-Tidhkārī li-Ibn Arabī*, Egyptian General Organization for Authorship and Publishing, 1389 AH/1969 CE.