the Fire without speaking of it, and that if this listening were beneficial, Allah and His Messenger would have prescribed it. For Allah says:
“This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and chosen Islam as your religion.”
If a believer finds that it benefits his heart but finds nothing in either the Book or the Sunnah to support it, he should pay it no heed.
Sahl ibn Abd Allāh al-Tustarī said:
“Every spiritual experience unsupported by the Book and the Sunnah is false.”
Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī said:
“An insight of the spiritual masters may occur to my heart, but I accept it only with the testimony of two upright witnesses: the Book and the Sunnah.”
Abū Sulaymān also said:
“Someone inspired to do something good must not act upon it until he finds a transmitted report supporting it. Once he finds such a report, it becomes light upon light.”
Al-Junayd ibn Muhammad said:
“This knowledge of ours is bound by the Book and the Sunnah. Whoever has neither read the Quran nor written down hadith is not qualified to speak about this knowledge of ours.”
Furthermore, Allah says in the Book:
“Their prayer at the House was nothing but whistling and clapping.”
The early generations—the Companions and their successors—explained that mukā’ refers to whistling and similar vocal sounds, such as singing, while tasdiyah means clapping the hands. Allah has thus told us that the polytheists used to treat clapping