Others compose poems for him proclaiming union with God, asserting that he is the creator of all creation, that he created the heavens and the earth, and that they prostrate before him and worship him.

Others describe their Lord in their poems using accounts transmitted in fabricated reports that liken Him to created beings, claim to describe how He is, and ascribe a body to Him. These are fabricated lies and outright disbelief: sharing meals and drinks with Him, walking alongside Him, embracing Him, His descending to the earth and sitting in one of its gardens, and the like. Each of them treats these things as hidden secrets and closely guarded knowledge reserved for the elect among Allah’s God-fearing allies.

One example is what you find among the Rāfidah, adherents of Shiism, and those who have learned from them: claims to knowledge of secrets and realities supposedly received from the Prophet’s household, concerning either religious knowledge or knowledge of events. They regard these as among the most exalted matters, which they must urge one another to conceal, while believing whatever of them they do not truly understand. Yet all of it is fabricated lies and invented falsehood. This group—the “Rāfidah”—is among those most given to lying and claiming possession of concealed knowledge. This is why the Bātiniyyah and the Qarāmitah have affiliated themselves with them.

The first of these people appeared in the time of the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, may Allah be pleased with him. They began claiming that he had been singled out to receive secret knowledge and a special bequest. His closest companions would therefore ask him about this, and he would deny it. When word reached him that such claims were being made, he would address the people and deny that this was true of him.