Allah’s leave. Had they, when they wronged themselves, come to you, sought Allah’s forgiveness, and had the Messenger sought forgiveness for them, they would surely have found Allah Ever-Relenting, Most Merciful. But no—by your Lord—they will never believe until they make you the arbiter in every dispute among them; then they must find within themselves no misgiving about your judgment, and must surrender in complete submission.

[Being Deluded by Mystical Unveilings and Extraordinary Feats]

Anyone who sets himself against anything the Messenger brought, while blindly imitating someone he assumes to be a friend of Allah, is basing his conduct on the premise that this person is indeed a friend of Allah and that a friend of Allah would never contradict revelation. Yet even if that man were among the greatest saints—like the foremost Companions or the best of the Successors—nothing he says or does that conflicts with the Book and the Sunnah may be accepted from him. How much less should it be accepted when he is nowhere near that rank!

You will find many such people whose sole evidence for declaring someone a friend of Allah is that he has exhibited a mukāshafa (mystical unveiling) in certain matters, or performed some extraordinary, preternatural feat: pointing at a person who then dies; flying through the air to Mecca or elsewhere; sometimes walking on water; filling a jug from thin air; producing provisions from the unseen; disappearing from people’s sight; someone calling upon him for help while he is absent or even dead and then seeing him come and fulfill the need; informing people of what has been stolen from them, or of the condition of an absent relative or a sick person, and the like. None of these things, however, proves that the one who performs them is a friend of Allah. Indeed, the true friends of Allah are unanimously agreed that even if a man were to fly in the air or walk on