or another of the prophets, while they themselves are awake. He speaks to them, and they speak to him. They may seek religious rulings from him and ask him about hadiths, and he answers them. Some are made to imagine that the chamber has split open and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, has emerged from it, and that he and his two Companions have embraced them. Others are made to imagine that their voices, raised in greeting, have reached a distant place several days’ journey away.

I know a great many people who have experienced this and similar things. Those who have told me of their own experiences in this regard, and of what they related to other truthful people, are too numerous to mention here. Such experiences occur among many people, just as they occur among Christians and polytheists. Yet many people deny them, while many who believe them suppose that they are divine signs and that the person who witnessed them did so because of his righteousness and religious devotion. They do not realize that this comes from Satan, and that Satan misleads a person according to his lack of knowledge.

To someone with less knowledge, Satan says things that the person knows plainly contradict the Sharia. As for someone with some knowledge of it, Satan does not tell him what he knows contradicts the Sharia, nor does he give him anything beneficial to his religion. Rather, he leads him astray from some of what he already knew, for this is what devils do. Even if the person thinks he has gained something, what he has lost of his religion is greater.

For this reason, none of the Companions ever said that al-Khidr, Moses, or Jesus had come to him, or that he had heard the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, return his greeting. Ibn ʿUmar used to offer his greeting upon returning from a journey, but he never said that he heard a reply. The same was true of the Successors and their followers. This only arose among some of the later generations.