Shaykh so-and-so and Shaykh so-and-so create and provide sustenance, and that any sustenance he does not provide me, I do not want; or saying that ‘Alī was the one who taught the Quran to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace; or saying that when the Maker of the world made it, nature overwhelmed Him until He destroyed Himself; or saying that his own existence and the existence of this and that are identical to the existence of the Real, and that Allah is identical to the heavens, the earth, plants, and animals; that every sound and utterance in the world is His voice and speech, and every movement and stillness in the world is His movement and stillness; that the transcendent Real is the creation to which He is likened; that if the heavens and the earth ceased to exist, Allah’s reality would cease to exist; that, in respect of His essence, He has neither name nor attribute; that He exists only in contingent entities; and that He is the absolute existence permeating created things, neither distinct nor separate from them.

These and similar statements are uttered by extremists among the polytheists and the People of the Book, and by those extremists of this community who resemble them.

For although those who profess adherence to the Sunnah and hadith are more upright than their counterparts—the Sunnah stands within Islam as Islam stands among the religions—just as one finds among those who profess Islam what is found among others, even though every good found among non-Muslims is more abundant among Muslims, and every evil found among Muslims is more abundant among others, so too may those who profess adherence to the Sunnah exhibit what is found among others, even though every good found among those outside Ahl al-Sunnah is more abundant among them, and every