—and some of them go on to say, “The Messiah is the Son of God.” They even employ the language of carnal desire, asserting that such people are “children conceived through lust.” Still others claim that He is Mary’s husband, repeating exactly what certain Christians maintain.

All they really possess is a stock of tales they pass on from their shaykhs about kharq al-ʿādāt—extraordinary feats that break the normal order. These reports may be fabricated, or they may be genuine. If genuine, they could well belong to the states of the awliyāʾ al-Shayṭān (allies of Satan), such as sorcerers and diviners; or they might stem from the states of the awliyāʾ al-Raḥmān (allies of the Most Merciful). Yet even when the feats come from the allies of the Most Merciful, that still gives no warrant for blindly imitating a walī (saint) in everything he says, for a walī is not necessarily infallible. One is neither obliged to follow him in all his statements nor to believe everything he utters.

This privilege belongs exclusively to the Prophets. It is mandatory to believe everything they say, to affirm as true every report they give about the unseen, and to obey whatever they have imposed upon the nations. Whoever disbelieves in any part of what they have brought is an unbeliever, and whoever reviles even a single Prophet becomes liable to execution. None of this applies to the righteous other than the Prophets.

Thus, these extremist innovators—the over-zealous polytheists who advance a form of indwelling—are