This attitude was one of the consequences of the school espoused by those who claim to possess “true realization.” They maintain that the fully “realized” gnostic—who deems it permissible to follow the religion of Muslims, Jews, Christians, or even idol-worshippers—is the very best of creation. Next in rank, according to Ibn Sabʿīn and his brethren, comes “the Sufi,” by which they mean the mystic who walks the philosophers’ path, not the Sufi who adheres to the way of the people of ḥadith, the Book, and the Sunnah. Thus the word “Sufi” has become ambiguous: when these advocates of “oneness” speak of a Sufi, they intend this philosophical type. For that reason they regard him as superior to the philosopher himself, because he combines rational speculation with devotional rapture, like the slain Suhrawardī and those of his ilk. After him, in their hierarchy, stands the Ashʿarī theologian; hence they place the Ashʿarites below the philosophers and consider them inferior.

Yet it is unanimously recognized by the Muslims that even those viewed as lower than the Ashʿarites—such as the Muʿtazilites and the Shīʿah, who insist on the obligation of Islam and forbid everything beyond it—are better than the philosophers who allow a person to practice the faith of Muslims, Jews, or Christians alike. How much more so, then, for the groups affiliated with the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah—such as the Ashʿarites, the Karrāmiyyah, the Sālimiyyah, and others—for while these affirm the obligatoriness of Islam and prohibit all that contradicts it, they also refute the innovators notorious for opposing the Sunnah and the Community, like the Khārijites.