and became angry—:

“The inward and the outward, gatherings and schools, the Sharia and spiritual realities—all of this must be referred back to the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. No one may depart from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: neither shaykhs nor Sufi devotees, neither kings nor emirs, neither scholars nor judges, nor anyone else. Rather, everyone must obey Allah and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.”

I said this and other things to the same effect. Raising his voice, he replied, “We have spiritual states, and so on.” He claimed that they possessed extraordinary spiritual states involving fire and other things, that these were exclusive to them, and that these entitled them to unquestioning acceptance of their spiritual state.

Raising my voice and becoming angry, I said, “I challenge every Ahmadī, from the east of the earth to its west: whatever they do with fire, I will do just as you do, and whoever is burned is defeated.” I may also have said, “May Allah’s curse be upon him.” “But only after we have washed our bodies with vinegar and hot water.”

The emirs and the people asked me about this, and I said, “Because they have tricks for handling fire, using preparations made from such things as frog fat, bitter-orange peel, and talc.”

The people raised an uproar at this. He then began making a show of his ability to do it, saying, “You and I will be wrapped in a reed mat after our bodies have been coated with sulphur.”

(I said, “Then get up.”