incompatible with the Messenger’s character. Testimony was given against him that he had said, “The Messenger comes to me and tells me such-and-such”—things which it is disbelief to attribute to the Messenger. I explained to those in authority that this man was a soothsayer of sorts and that what he saw was a devil. That is why it did not come to him in the Prophet’s known appearance, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, but in an unfamiliar form. He would report that this figure humbled itself before him and permitted him to consume intoxicants and do other things. Many people thought he was lying about what he had seen. He was not lying about having seen that form, but he was a disbeliever for believing it to be the Messenger of Allah. Such cases are numerous.

Thus, devils descend upon them according to how far they have fulfilled Satan’s wishes. The further they stray from Allah, His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the path of the believers, the closer they come to Satan. They fly through the air, but it is Satan who carries them. Some strike down those present, but it is their devils that have struck them down. Some produce food and accompaniments and fill a jug with water from the air, but it is the devils that have done this. The ignorant imagine these to be miraculous gifts granted to Allah’s pious allies, whereas they are merely manifestations like those experienced by sorcerers, soothsayers and their like.

Whoever fails to distinguish between states that come from the Most Merciful and those arising from the self will confuse truth with falsehood. Whoever’s heart Allah has not illuminated with the realities of faith and adherence to the Quran will not distinguish the path of one who follows the truth from