that of the eminently truthful. The best of creation after the prophets are the eminently truthful, as Allah Most High says:

“They will be with those whom Allah has blessed: the prophets, the eminently truthful, the martyrs and the righteous. What excellent companions they are!”

For this reason, they hold that no one after the prophets is superior to the Sufi. In reality, however, the Sufi belongs to one category of the eminently truthful: he is someone of eminent truthfulness who specializes in asceticism and worship according to the approach they have pursued through their considered judgment. He is thus one of the eminently truthful who follows this particular path, just as one speaks of the eminently truthful among scholars or among rulers. This is a narrower category than that of the eminently truthful in general, and falls below those Companions, Successors and their followers whose truthfulness was complete.

Thus, describing those ascetics and devoted worshippers of Basra as eminently truthful is like describing the leading jurists of Kufa as eminently truthful as well. Each is so according to the path he has followed in obedience to Allah and His Messenger, in keeping with his considered judgment. They may be among the most distinguished of the eminently truthful in their own age, and thus among the most accomplished of their contemporaries in this rank. Yet those of eminent truthfulness in the earliest age were more accomplished than they. The eminently truthful comprise different ranks and types. Accordingly, each has a particular kind of spiritual state or worship that he has fully realized and mastered, and that predominates in him, even though someone else may be more accomplished and superior in another kind.

Because of the exercise of considered judgment among many of them, and the disputes surrounding it, people disagreed about their path. One group condemned “the Sufis and Sufism” and said that they are