If you avoid what is forbidden to you of grave sins, in the way of affirming any other [than God] in existence, that which is an [idolatrous] act of association in essence, in attribute and in fact. For the gravest of sins is the affirmation of an existence other than His existence, exalted be He, as was said [to man]: the sin of your very existence alone is an immeasurable sin; then [the gravest is] to affirm a duality in [His] essence by affirming that the attributes are additional to it, as the Commander of the Believers said: 'Sincere belief in Him [as One] is not to ascribe attributes to Him'; We will absolve you of your evil deeds, by the manifestation of the soul or the heart in the form of one of its attributes sometimes, for after the manifestation of the light of the affirmation of the Oneness, these [attributes] are unable to withstand; and admit you by an honourable gate, being the presence of the source of the union, outside of which there is no glory.
