—for the unrestricted welfare of all God’s servants.

Third: the consensus of the early scholars—among the Companions, the Followers, and those after them. On that basis they deemed the Prophet’s ﷺ actions authoritative for everyone in analogous situations.

Analogy shows that the rulings are universal and that there is no special dispensation for the Sufis:
This previously mentioned principle embraces weighty corollaries:

1. It supplies compelling proof in favor of analogy (qiyās) against those who deny it, for a directive originally addressed to a particular group automatically extends to every comparable case.
2. Many who have not grasped the objectives of the Sharia imagine that the Sufis follow a path other than that of the majority and that they possess rulings different from those set forth in the Law, citing certain of the Sufis’ words and deeds as evidence.

Rulings on customs
Persistent customs are of two kinds:

1. Sharia-based customs that the revealed evidence has either endorsed or repudiated. That is, the Sharia has commanded them—obligatorily or as a recommendation—or forbidden them, whether as disapproved or prohibited.
2. Customs current among people for which there is no legal evidence either affirming or negating them.

As for the first type, it remains permanently binding, like all other legal matters. Examples include deeming a slave ineligible to testify in court, the command to remove impurity, the covering of the nakedness, and similar practices found among people that the Lawgiver judges either good or bad. All of these fall under the rulings of the Sharia; they are not subject to change. What is deemed good in them can never turn bad, nor can what is bad become good.

With respect to the second type, such customs may persist or they may change, yet they still serve as causes that generate rulings. The stable customs include the natural appetite for food, sexual intercourse, looking, speaking, and the like. The changing customs include those that ordinarily fluctuate, such as