“When it is said to them, ‘Believe in what Allah has sent down,’ they say, ‘We believe in what was sent down to us,’ yet they deny whatever came afterward, though it is the truth confirming what is with them.”
(Qur’an, 2:91)
Previously He said:
“Long before, they used to pray for victory over the disbelievers; but when there came to them what they recognized, they rejected it. So may Allah’s curse be upon the disbelievers.”
(Qur’an, 2:89)
In this way Allah depicts the Jews: they knew the truth before the appearance of the one who voiced it and summoned others to it. Yet when that spokesman came from a group they did not favor, they would not submit to him. They would accept the truth only from the faction to which they themselves belonged—even though they do not themselves live up to what their own creed obliges.
This same affliction besets many who lay claim to a particular school in knowledge or in religion—whether jurists or Sufis
(1) In MS B the entire verse is given; it is Qur’an 2:91.
(2) MSS C and D read: “up to His saying: ‘So the curse of Allah is upon the disbelievers.’” This is a copyist’s mistake, for that verse precedes the one the author has just cited—“When it is said to them, ‘Believe …’” (Qur’an 2:91)—as shown in the main text.
(3) Qur’an 2:89.
(4) The printed edition reads: “the appearance of the Prophet who proclaimed it,” contrary to all the manuscripts, as established.
(5) Here too the printed edition adds the word “the Prophet.”
(6) MSS C and D read: “of their creed.”
(7) MS B adds: “and religion.”
(8) The term “Sufis” refers to the followers and shaykhs of the various Sufi orders. In the form practiced by these orders today, Sufism is alien to Islam and foreign to the Muslims: it has no foundation in the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), nor in the practice of the Companions, the Followers, or the early righteous generations. Rather, it is an innovation permeated by practical, verbal, and doctrinal superstitions and deviations. The conduct of most contemporary Sufis in many Muslim lands, along with what we have heard, seen, and read, bears witness to this. Their published works, readily available in markets and libraries, likewise attest to their approval of such innovations, deviations, and acts of shirk. Examples include:
1. Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, by al-Shaʿrani.
2. Jamiʿ Karamat al-Awliyaʾ, by al-Nabhani.
3. Shawahid al-Haqq, also by al-Nabhani.
4. Jawahir al-Maʿani, by al-Tijani.
5. Sharh Fusus al-Hikam, by al-Qashani.
6. Al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi, by Dr. ʿAbd al-Halim Mahmud.
7. Abu Madyan al-Ghawth: His Life and Ascent to Allah, by Dr. ʿAbd al-Halim Mahmud.
8. Aqtab al-Tasawwuf al-Thalatha, by Salah ʿAzzam.
9. Al-Lumaʿ, by Abu Nasr al-Tusi, and many others.