- The third category comprises those who enjoy Allah’s friendship from one angle and incur His enmity from another: the disobedient Muslim. He is counted among Allah’s friends in proportion to his obedience, and he is opposed by Allah in proportion to his sin. In that sense, every Muslim is a friend of Allah, but only to the extent of the faith he actually possesses.
Whoever claims sainthood—or has it claimed for him—while lacking true faith and God-consciousness is nothing but an impostor and a liar.
Some of these claimants are magicians, priests, charlatans, and fortune-tellers. Shaykh al-Islām authored a treatise entitled Al-Furqān bayna Awliyāʾ al-Raḥmān wa-Awliyāʾ al-Shayṭān (The Criterion Between the Allies of the Most Merciful and the Allies of Satan), in which he exposed those who assert sainthood while spreading among the people feats they imagine to be miracles, when in fact they are satanic tricks. The details of this will be discussed later.
Thus, loving the true allies of Allah, following their example, supporting them, and keeping close to them is an obligation.
His words, “and we do not place any of the awliyāʾ above any of the prophets, peace be upon them,” are a refutation of the Sufis, for they exaggerate about the saints and rank them above the prophets. Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah do not go to such extremes; they assign the saints their rightful station. The deviant Sufis, however, prefer them to the prophets, and one of them even says: