If you witness its various forms but perceive nothing other than it, and if you become annihilated (fanāʾ) not in others but in yourself, then you experience the state of fanāʾ (annihilation in God) without being annihilated from your own essence (without losing or forgetting yourself). For you are, in terms of your subtlety (laṭīfa), witnessed by yourself; and in terms of your form and body, you are annihilated with yourself. In this state of fanāʾ, if you witness your own composition (that you are created from elements), what you witness is an illusion and an example that is neither yourself nor another. In this fanāʾ, your state is like that of a sleeping person who possesses vision (ruʾya) and is its possessor (ṣāḥib). (Esfār, 66)
Fanāʾ is to be annihilated in Allah from everything other than Allah. In this fanāʾ, you must also be annihilated from seeing (that you are in the state of fanāʾ). Thus, you cannot know that you are in the state of witnessing (mushāhada) the Real (al-Ḥaqq). For in this ḥāl (spiritual state), you have no eye with which to witness. Here, some people in this state are subject to a certain error.
God willing, I will explain to you the way to be saved from this error, which Allah has inspired to me. It is as follows: The possessor of this state, as he says, when he witnesses Allah and is annihilated from everything other than Him, either witnesses Him in His acts (or deeds), or, if he does not become absent from the world or from Allah's effects in the world and witnesses Allah in His acts, he does not see (that he is witnessing). If he witnesses Him in His acts (i.e., His deeds), he has not truly become annihilated from everything other than Allah. If, outside of His acts, he witnesses that Allah is never in need of the world, this is a correct claim. For Allah is not in need of the worlds. This station of witnessing was the station of the Greatest Siddiq (al-Ṣiddīq al-Akbar). For he said: "I have never seen anything except that I saw Allah before it." With this statement, he proved that he saw Allah when there was nothing else. Then, when he was brought to another station of witnessing, he saw that things emanated from Him. He had seen Him when there was nothing. He counted this vision before witnessing and said: "I have never seen anything except that I saw Allah before it." Thus, I have explained the matter to you as it is. (Esfār, 68)
According to us, in this path, the nisba (relation) of baqāʾ (subsistence in God) is more honorable than the nisba of fanāʾ. For in the lowest, fanāʾ is eternal in relation to the perishable; in the highest, being baqī (subsistent) is eternal in relation to the subsistent. Baqāʾ has the power and authority to efface you from this state. Baqāʾ is to belong and be connected to the Real (al-Ḥaqq). In this sense, baqāʾ is the highest rank in this path, as used in the language of the people of God (ahl Allāh). Fanāʾ is your being related to existence. For you say, "I have become annihilated from this." However, relation to the Real is superior. In terms of relation, baqāʾ is preferable. For baqāʾ and fanāʾ are two interdependent states. In this path, only the one who is annihilated is subsistent, and the one who is subsistent is annihilated. The one characterized by fanāʾ is only in baqāʾ, and the one characterized by baqāʾ is only in the state of fanāʾ. Thus, in the nisba of baqāʾ there is witnessing of the Real, and in the nisba of fanāʾ there is witnessing of the created. (Esfār, 254)
Baqāʾ, which has no cessation, whose decree does not change, and which is established both as the Real and as creation, is a divine attribute. Fanāʾ, on the other hand, is a relation that can cease and is an attribute related to created beings. In the presence of the Real, it has no effect. Every attribute ascribed to the Real is more complete and higher than an attribute specific to creation. Only servanthood (ʿubūdiyya) is excepted, for its relation and superiority to creation is more complete and higher than the relation of lordship (rubūbiyya).
If you say, "Fanāʾ is attached to servanthood and inseparable from it," we answer: It is not correct for it to be like servanthood. For servanthood is a fixed attribute, and its cessation is not possible. Fanāʾ can efface servanthood from itself; its ruling is contrary to that of servanthood (no fanāʾ abolishes servanthood). Any state that removes a thing from its essence and veils its reality is not considered honorable by this group. For it gives you the opposite of what the matter is and joins you to the ignorant. Baqāʾ is the unceasing, fixed state of the servant. For it is impossible (muḥāl) for the essence to be characterized by something other than its own existence (wujūd), and it is also impossible to prove it by the nonexistence of the essence. Rather, existence (wujūd) is the attribute after nonexistence. (Esfār, 255)
Fanāʾ consists of the unconsciousness born from the domination of the judgment of bewilderment over the servant. Annihilation from oneself is a state of unconsciousness with Him; annihilation in the beloved is to be annihilated in Him. In the language of this group, fanāʾ is simply not knowing the self and anything required by the self. If you know this, know also that the divine will, which is assigned to created beings, proceeds in every state and form without cause or reason, but rather arises purely from divine choice. For will (irāda) is one of the judgments of majesty (ʿaẓama) or the attributes of divinity (ulūhiyya). Because of divinity and majesty, fanāʾ-baqāʾ belong to Him without cause. This view is contrary to that of Imam Muhyiddin Arabi, for he said: "It is not permissible to call Allah 'the chooser,' for He does not act by wanting anything, but rather acts as required by the knowledge within Himself. The knowledge required by what is within Himself is only as it must be. Thus, He is not a chooser." Such is his statement in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. He spoke from the secret he obtained from divine manifestation, but also missed more than he obtained. This is among the requirements of divine majesty. We too obtained what he obtained, and then, in the manifestation of might, saw that Allah is the possessor of choice in things, and that, without necessity or being a willer, He acts in things by choosing with a divine act and essential attribute. (Insān, I, 49)
Muhyiddin Arabi was the first to openly articulate the doctrine of the oneness of being (tawḥīd al-wujūd). Even if the expressions of earlier shaykhs described tawhid (the oneness of God) and spoke of ittihād (union), it is possible to interpret these as referring to the oneness of witnessing (tawḥīd al-shuhūd). Because nothing other than the Real is seen, some (as among the ecstatic utterances) have said, "There is nothing in my cloak but Allah," and others, "Subḥānī mā..."