Ibn Ḥamawiyyah and those of his ilk are thus in error, as proven by the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the Muslim community. Even al-Tirmidhī—despite his distinction and learning—was censured by the Muslims when he wrote The Seal of the Saints. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī relates in Miḥnat al-Ṣūfiyyah that they banished him from his hometown, declared him an unbeliever, and charged him with grievous religious offences because of that very book. He then travelled to Balkh, whose people welcomed him only because his views matched theirs. Yet the book contains claims so patently false that every Muslim knows instinctively they contradict the religion.

That work opened the door to the whole notion of a “Seal of the Saints,” until later figures arrived—each asserting that he himself held that rank, such as Ibn ʿArabī, Ibn Ḥamawiyyah, and others—bringing with them enormities unheard of even from al-Tirmidhī. In the words of these men and their likes one finds the claim that certain saints surpass, wholly or in part, the prophets themselves. The leading Shaykhs of Sufism, however, are unanimously agreed that the prophets are superior to the saints, a position likewise affirmed by all Muslim scholars. Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī records this consensus of the Sufis in his work The Creed of the Sufis.