something that flatly contradicts the unequivocal textual evidence, and they go on to say to anyone who wishes to tread their path: “Abandon both reason and revelation—step outside reason and revelation altogether.”

They even recite verses in their praise:
Lunatics they are—yet the secret of their madness is lofty;
At its very feet the intellect bows in prostration.
A company who have torn down all order and burned the fence;
For them there is neither obligation nor transmitted text.

Such people merely imitate their shaykhs, following them in whatever leads them beyond the Messenger’s shariʿah, in the novelties they have devised without Allah’s permission—turning bidʿahs (religious innovations) into acts of worship and declaring the forbidden lawful, just as some Christians do with their own priests.

If anyone objects to one of them, they reply, “The shaykh’s spiritual state must be accepted; he is not to be questioned,” exactly as the Christians say about their clergy. Among these devotees are even those who proclaim, “We are the children of God.”