on the Day of Resurrection to settle the final judgment among His servants, while the angels will be arrayed rank upon rank, as the Exalted has said: “And your Lord will come, and the angels, rank upon rank” (89:22). He—highly exalted and sanctified—will indeed come on that Day to judge between His servants, forgiving whom He wills from among the sinful monotheists and punishing whom He wills, just as He has said: “He forgives whom He wills and punishes whom He wills” (3:129).”

The statement of Maʿmar ibn Ahmad al-Isfahani:

The gnostic Imam Maʿmar ibn Ahmad al-Isfahani—recognized as the shaykh of the Sufis in his homeland around the fourth century AH—said: “I wished to offer my companions a testament drawn from the Sunnah and an exhortation taken from wisdom, summarizing what the people of hadith and tradition, and the people of gnosis and Sufism, both early and later, have agreed upon.

“In it I wrote: that Allah rose over His Throne without asking how, without likening Him to anything, and without