I said:

“This includes performing the five daily prayers at their appointed times, as Allah and His Messenger commanded. Some of these men do not pray, while others speak during their prayers. Indeed, yesterday, on Friday afternoon, after they had complained about me, one of them began saying during the prayer itself: ‘O my master Ahmad! Something for Allah’s sake!’ Besides invalidating the prayer, this constitutes associating partners with Allah and invoking someone other than Him while communing with Him—the very communion in which He commanded us to say:

‘You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.’

“This happened yesterday in the presence of their shaykh. When the Muslims objected, the man who said it was told to seek forgiveness, as is their custom with minor sins. Yet their shaykh did not tell him to repeat the prayer. They also shout very loudly during prayer, which is reprehensible and invalidates it.”

He said, “This overcomes them just as sneezing does.”

I replied, “Sneezing is from Allah: Allah loves sneezing and dislikes yawning, and a person cannot prevent it. This shouting, however, is from Satan. They do it deliberately and contrive it, and they are capable of suppressing it.”

After the gathering, someone well acquainted with them told me that during prayer they do things that neither Jews nor Christians do. For example, one says, “I am on the belly of the imam’s wife,” while another says such-and-such about the imam, and other vile remarks of this kind. He also told me that when someone rebukes them for abandoning prayer, they take turns praying. I know that they are allied with devils; they are not