Then this shaykh from among them addressed the emir:

“We want you to assemble the four judges and the jurists for us. We follow the Shāfi‘ī school.”

I said to him, “This is neither recommended nor sanctioned by any Muslim scholar. Rather, they all forbid practising it as an act of worship and consider it an innovation. Here is Shaykh Kamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Zamalkānī, the Shāfi‘ī mufti.” I called him over and said, “Kamāl al-Dīn, what do you say about this?”

He replied, “This is an innovation, not recommended but rather disliked,” or words to that effect. Some of those present had a fatwa bearing the written statements of a number of scholars to that effect.

I said, “No one may depart from the Sharia of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, or from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah Most High bless him and grant him peace.” I am unsure whether I spoke here about the account of Moses and al-Khidr, for a long time has passed since I spoke those words.

Then that shaykh, ‘Abd Allāh, spoke up, raised his voice, and said:

“We have spiritual states and inward matters that others cannot comprehend.”

He said things whose exact wording I did not retain, mentioning such things as gatherings and schools, the inward and the outward. The substance of his words was that the inward belonged to us and the outward to others, and that we possessed something which those concerned with the outward could not comprehend, so they should not condemn us for it. (Then I said to him—and raised my voice