God bears witness…He [Sahl] said:That is, God knows and makes clear (bayyana) …that there is no god but He. He is witness to Himself by Himself; and this is particular to His essence. He called to witness those of His creatures whom He called to witness before their creation, according to His knowledge. Consequently, the people possessed of His gnosis (maʿrifa) are made aware that He had full knowledge of everything that will be before it was actually brought into existence. Hence, [God’s] oneness (tawḥīd) is independent of existentiated beings (dūn al-akwān), just as God was a witness to Himself by Himself before the existence of creation.ʿAbd al-Wāḥid said:I was with Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī when he saw a porter carrying wood. I asked him, ‘Do you have a Lord?’ to which he replied, ‘Is the likes of me questioned about his Lord?’ So I said to him, ‘If you have a Creator as you claim, why do you work with wood?’ Then the man indicated to the sky, and lo and behold, the wood became gold! We were both amazed by him on account of this. Then he said, ‘O God! I have no need for this’, so the gold turned back to wood just as it was before. So we said to him, ‘What led you to do this?’, to which he replied, ‘I am [God’s] slave, so I carry this in order that I should not forget who I am.’ His words:
