the created beings—neither angel nor human—through whom all creatures obtain their provision and aid. Hence the claim advanced by the philosophers about the “ten intellects,” which they imagine to be the angels, and the claim made by the Christians regarding the Messiah and the like, is, by unanimous agreement of the Muslims, unmistakable unbelief.

The same applies to what some people mean when they speak of the ghawth: they allege that on earth there are three-hundred-and-some men whom they call the nujabāʾ (the elect); from these, seventy are selected as the nuqabāʾ (the chiefs); from them forty are the abdāl (the substitutes); from them seven are the aqṭāb (the poles); from them four are the awtād (the pegs); and from them one is the ghawth (the supreme helper). They further assert that he resides in Mecca, and that whenever the people of the earth are struck by a calamity concerning their sustenance or their victory, they appeal to the three-hundred-and-some men, who in turn appeal to the seventy, the seventy to the forty, and the forty to