Comparable to these sequences devised by the speculative theologians, who claim that knowledge can be attained only through them, are the sequences set out by various Sufi writers on the states and actions of the heart when discussing spiritual stations and stages and their order.

One lists a certain number of stages and stations in a particular order; another gives a different number and order. One says that a servant cannot advance to a certain station until he has attained such-and-such, and that he advances to one stage after another. One says that the stages number one hundred, while another puts their number higher or lower. One divides the stages into several categories that another treats as a single category. One mentions names and states that another does not mention.

At most, what any one of these writers has set out describes his own state and that of others like him, their spiritual journey, and the order of their stages. If what they say is true, it amounts, at most, to a description of the spiritual journey of a particular group. But the claim that all the allies of Allah Most High must follow precisely this ordered course and these transitions is false.

Another parallel is what the philosophers and logicians say about the order in which knowledge is acquired and the means of acquiring it, including the definitions, syllogisms, and transitions in thought that they describe. At most, their account—if correct—describes the course followed by a particular group. But to claim that all human beings can acquire knowledge of what they seek to know only through these particular methods is a claim that is