They sometimes make this claim in an unqualified manner, and, according to their own principles, they explain it as follows: prophethood, they say, is the station in which intelligible realities are projected into imaginal forms, whereas sainthood is the reception of those same realities in their purely intelligible state. Thus the saint receives the intelligibles in their unalloyed purity, while the prophet—inasmuch as he is a saint—possesses those intelligibles as well; yet inasmuch as he is a prophet his task is to cast them into images, so he receives by means of the imaginative faculty. In their scheme, the rank of messengership is lower still, for it is merely the level at which he conveys the message to humankind. Hence their saying:

The station of prophethood lies in an isthmus—
Above the messenger, yet beneath the saint.

This, however, turns the accepted truth on its head, for Muslims are unanimous that the Messenger is superior to a prophet who is not a messenger, and that a prophet is superior to a saint who is not a prophet. Messengership comprises both prophethood and sainthood, just as prophethood comprises sainthood. The foremost of the saints are those who receive most perfectly from the prophets, chief among them being Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq—may God be pleased with him—for he surpasses ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with them both. Yet ʿUmar, as is authentically reported from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—was such that the Prophet said: “Among the nations before you there were inspired men …”