ISLAMIC SCHOLARS' VIEWS OF THE "TRUTH Of Matter

What is really explained by saying, "Matter is an illusion" is that
the only absolute being is God. Grasping this fact is very important
in terms of having true faith in God. For this reason, many Islamic
scholars in history have also drawn attention to this fact and
stressed that all the material world was created on the level of
senses and perceptions.

The most important of those Islamic scholars who explained the
true nature of matter was Imam Rabbani, who has been widely respected
in the Islamic world for hundreds of years and is seen as "the
greatest reformer of the 10th century according to the Muslim
calendar." In his book Letters, Imam Rabbani provides a detailed
commentary on this very subject. In one of his letters, Imam Rabbani
says that God created the entire universe at the level of perception:

… The Glorious God assigned an appearance from all appearances
for names from all names in the sphere of non-existence with his
Perfect Might. And He created it at the sphere of sensations and
perceptions. At the time He willed and in the way He willed … The
constancy of the world is not at the exterior level but at the level
of sensations and perceptions … Even in the exterior level, there is
nothing permanent and existing other than the being and attributes of
Almighty God...1

In another letter, Imam Rabbani once again stresses that all
that exists is created only at the level of senses and perceptions:

I have used the following sentence above, "God's creation is at the
level of senses and perceptions." This means "God's creation is at
such a level that at that level, there is no permanency or existence
of objects apart from senses and perceptions.2

On close examination, Imam Rabbani is careful to emphasize that
the world we see, in other words all that exists, has been created on
the level of perception. All that exists outside this level of
perception is the Existence of God. Actually, this concept
of "outside" is a hypothetical one, because a perception has no body,
and no volume. Imam Rabbani explains that things (in other words,
matter) have no existence on the outside:

Nothing but God exists on the outside… Perhaps all of Almighty
God's creation finds constancy on the level of perception… In the
same way that matter has no existence in the outside world, it
appears on the outside in a colorless form… If it does have a fixed
appearance, that is again only on the perceptual level. It only has
permanency thanks to God's artistry on that one level. In short, it
only has permanency and appearance on one level. It does not have
existence on one plane and appearance on another… It contains no sign
on the outside that might allow it to be seen there…