Some of them explicitly declared that a saint knows everything Allah knows and can do everything Allah can do. They claimed that the Prophet had possessed this, and that it then passed to al-Hasan ibn ‘Alī, and from al-Hasan to his descendants, one after another, until it reached Abū al-Hasan al-Shādhilī, and then his son. One of their leading adherents told me this directly.
A trustworthy man among their prominent figures told me that they say: “Muhammad is Allah.”
One of the shaykhs who had spiritual training and experience told me that he and Ibn Hūd were in Mecca and entered the Kaaba. Pointing to the middle of the Kaaba, Ibn Hūd said to him: “This is where the first light descended.”
He then asked him: “If the Master of this House were to say to you, ‘I want to make you a god,’ what would you say to Him?”
The shaykh said: “My hair stood on end at these words, and I recoiled”—or words to that effect.
Some people relate that when the Zanj entered Basra, Sahl ibn ‘Abd Allāh was told about it. He said:
“Ah! Were certain people in this city of yours to ask Allah to remove the mountains from their places, He would remove them. And were they to ask Him