king, as suited his purposes—just as al-Nasīr al-Tūsī and his like behaved with Hülegü, king of the unbelievers. It was he who advised them to kill the caliph in Baghdad upon its capture. He seized people’s books, both privately owned and held as charitable endowments, took those that served his purposes, and ruined the rest. He built an observatory and placed the books there. He gave funds from Muslim endowments to the scholars of the polytheists—the Bakhshiyya and the Tawīniyya—and at his observatory he paid the philosopher, astrologer, and physician many times what he paid the jurist. He and his companions drank wine during the month of Ramadan and did not pray.

Likewise, in Syria and Egypt there was a group whose members, for all their Sufism, devotion, and asceticism, would drink wine during the daytime in Ramadan. Sometimes they prayed, and sometimes they did not. They did not believe themselves bound by Islam’s obligations and prohibitions. Rather, they said, “These are for the common people and the prophets. People like us have no need of the prophets.”

They relate that one of the philosophers was told, “A prophet has been sent,” and he replied, “If everyone were like me, they would have no need of a prophet.” Such a story is recounted even by someone who is chief physician, yet does not recognize heresy or understand what this statement entails, owing to his ignorance of prophethood. Their foremost leader in the time of Moses was asked, “Why do you not go to him and learn from him?” He replied, “We are a rightly guided people, so we have no need of anyone to guide us.”

As for what they mention of pleasure in the heart and bliss through faith in Allah