fear and hope. Whoever claims “security” is ignorant of Allah and of what He has declared concerning Himself:

“None feel secure from Allah’s plan except the losers.”

I have devoted a separate work to exposing the failings of those who hold this view.

We believe that servitude to Allah remains binding upon a person so long as he retains his reason and understands his rights and duties. He remains subject to the rulings appropriate to his strength and ability, for Allah did not exempt the prophets, the steadfastly truthful, the martyrs, or the righteous from this servitude. Whoever claims to have passed from the bondage of servitude into the open expanse of freedom by casting off servitude and entering into the ordinances of oneness, interwoven with the bonds of otherness, is unquestionably an unbeliever—except someone afflicted by an illness or tenderness of feeling, who consequently becomes mentally impaired, insane, or delirious, with his reason disordered, or is overcome by a swoon that suspends the rulings dependent upon reason and deprives him of discernment and understanding. Such a person is outside the faith and has departed from the Sharia.

Whoever claims insight into people, knowing their stations and their standing before Allah without revelation conveyed through the words of a Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is outside the faith. Whoever claims to know people’s ultimate fate and destination, the state in which they will die, and how their lives will end—without revelation from the words of Allah and His Messenger—has incurred Allah’s wrath. “Intuitive discernment” is real, according to the principles we have mentioned; it has nothing to do with the claims we have described.

Whoever claims that His attributes, exalted is He, are bound up with his own attributes—not referring merely to a sign of greatness, divine enabling, and guidance, but meaning His eternal attributes, Mighty and Majestic is He—is an adherent of indwelling who professes divinity and fusion. This is unquestionably unbelief.