And we have discussed this at length elsewhere. In their view, neither speech nor any angel exists outside the prophet’s soul. Such is the claim made by those philosophers and polytheistic Sabians who hold this view. They claimed to be believers and said that they combined prophethood with philosophy. This is what al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and other philosophers do, as do the esoteric Qarmatians among the Ismā‘īlīs and others like them, who took the ideas of the Greek and Persian philosophers and presented them in the guise of Shiism and Rāfidism. The Imāmīs, Zaydīs, and other Shiites know that these people are disbelievers.
Likewise, Ibn Sab‘īn and others who outwardly profess Sufism while following this path take these people’s ideas and clothe them in Sufi expressions. The knowledgeable Sufis know that they are disbelievers. Indeed, the great Sufi masters—such as al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyād, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, ‘Amr ibn ‘Uthmān al-Shiblī, al-Junayd ibn Muhammad, Sahl ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Tustarī, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn Khafīf al-Shīrāzī, and others like them, may Allah be pleased with them—were among those most emphatic in declaring these people disbelievers.
For even if the position of these heretics contains faith in another respect, they in fact agree with their predecessor, al-Wahīd (“the solitary one”), who said:
“This is nothing but the word of a human being.”
Yet that man rejected him entirely, both outwardly and inwardly, whereas these people may believe in him outwardly and may inwardly believe in some of his attributes: that he is obeyed and held in high esteem, that he is the leader of the human race, and that this speech which