witnesses it directly and therefore sees no action as his own whatsoever. These people do not regard compulsion and the affirmation of divine decree, as such, as precluding religious obligation. Groups claiming spiritual realization, gnosis, and affirmation of Allah’s oneness have fallen into this error.

The reason is that they could not accommodate the notion that a servant may be commanded to do something while its opposite is decreed for him, just as the Muʿtazilah and similar Qadarī groups could not accommodate it. The Muʿtazilah affirmed religious commands and prohibitions but denied divine ordainment and decree—that is, Allah’s all-encompassing will and His creation of His servants’ actions. These people, by contrast, affirmed divine ordainment and decree but denied that commands and prohibitions apply to those who witness divine decree, since they could not deny them altogether.

Their position is worse than that of the Muʿtazilah; hence none of the early generations held it. These people consider commands and prohibitions applicable to those who remain veiled and have not witnessed this reality of the created order. They therefore hold that whoever attains the witnessing of this reality is no longer bound by commands and prohibitions and has become one of the elect. They sometimes interpret the words of the Most High accordingly:

“And worship your Lord until certainty comes to you.”

They take certainty to mean knowledge of this reality. Their position is explicit disbelief, even though some groups have fallen into it without knowing that it is disbelief. For it is necessarily known in the religion of Islam that commands and prohibitions remain binding upon every servant as long as he retains his reason