T h e  A n s w e r :  God forbid! Nobody at all has the ability to advance further than  those  purified  ones  who  were  the  stars  and  heirs  closest  to  the  Sun  of Prophethood; the highway is indeed theirs.

As for the Unity of Existence, it is a way and a state, but it is deficient. However, because it is illuminating and pleasurable, most of those who have reached that degree on their spiritual journeyings have not wanted to leave it; they have remained there and supposed it to be the ultimate degree.

If the spirit of the person who takes this way is divested of materiality and intermediaries and he has rent the veil of causes, and is immersed in a state of witnessing, then an experiential – not pertaining to knowledge – unity of existence that arises not from the Unity of Existence but from the Unity of Witnessing, may obtain for him a certain attainment, a spiritual station. He may even reach the degree of  denying  the  universe  for  God’s  sake.  But  if  he  is  submerged  in  causes  and preoccupied with materiality, for him, the Unity of Existence may mean going so far as denying God on account of the universe.

Yes,  the  great  highway  is  the  highway  of  the  Companions,  and  those  that followed them, and the Purified Ones. Their universal rule was, “the reality of things is constant.”[2]  In accordance with the sense of “There is nothing that resembles Him,”(42:11) Almight y God has absolutely nothing that resembles Him. He is utterly

beyond  being  comprehended  in  place  or  class  and  being  divided  into  parts.  His relation with beings is creativity. Beings are not imaginings or fancies as those who followed  the way of the  Unity of Existence  said. Visible things too are Almight y God’s works. Everything is not “Him,” everything is “from Him.” For events cannot be pre-eternal. We shall make this matter easier to understand with two comparisons:

T h e  F i r s t : For example, there is a king. Through his name of Just Judge he has a Ministry of Justice which shows the manifestation of that name. Another of his names is Khalifa, and the Shaikh al-Islam’s Office and learned institution are the manifestations of that name. He has also the name of Commander-in-Chief,  through which all the offices of the army perform their actions; the army is the manifestation of that name. Now, if someone were to appear and say:

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[2] ‘Umar al-Nasafi, al-Aqa’id, 1.