“This would be an angel.” I replied, “An angel does not come to the aid of a polytheist. It is only a devil seeking to lead him astray.”

Likewise, the devil assumes a person’s form and stands at Arafāt, so that someone who thinks well of that person imagines that he has stood at Arafāt. Many such people have been carried by the devil to Arafāt or elsewhere within the Sacred Precinct. They cross the prescribed boundary without entering the consecrated state or reciting the pilgrimage invocation, and neither circumambulate the House nor walk between al-Safā and al-Marwah. Some do not even pass through Mecca; others stand at Arafāt and return without throwing pebbles at the pillars. These and similar practices are ways in which the devil leads them astray: they do what Islamic law prohibits, whether forbidden or disliked, rather than anything obligatory or recommended. Yet the devil makes this appear to them to be among the miraculous gifts granted to the righteous, when it is actually his deception.

Allah is to be worshipped only through what is obligatory or recommended. Whoever performs an act of worship that is neither obligatory nor recommended, believing it to be obligatory or recommended, has merely had it made appealing to him by the devil. Even supposing that Allah pardons him because of his good intention and earnest striving, this is not something through which Allah honours His God-fearing allies. There is no honour in committing forbidden or disliked acts. Rather, honour lies in Allah protecting a person from them and preventing him from committing them, for such conduct diminishes him rather than elevates him.

Even if he is not punished with torment for it, it will inevitably lower him from his former standing, along with those followers of his who praise this condition and revere the person who experiences it. Praising forbidden and disliked acts, and revering those who practise them, is a departure from the path of Allah. The further a servant goes in