—is among the most baseless of falsehoods. How could it be otherwise, when this is one of the attributes of the Lord of the worlds, who alone possesses knowledge of the unseen and knows what lies within people’s hearts? How can these people make such a false claim when Allah, Most High, says in His Book:

“Knower of the unseen, He discloses His unseen to no one, except to a messenger whom He has chosen.”

Do they believe that those righteous allies are messengers among Allah’s messengers, such that it could rightly be said that they are informed of the unseen because Allah has informed them of it? Glory be to You! This is a monstrous slander.

Moreover, even if it were correct to call what happened to Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, a mystical unveiling, it would still be one of the extraordinary occurrences that may also occur through a disbeliever. The mere occurrence of such a thing does not establish the faith of the person through whom it occurs, much less establish that he is one of Allah’s righteous allies. For this reason, the scholars say that an extraordinary occurrence, if it occurs through a Muslim, is a divine honour; otherwise, it is an enticement leading gradually to ruin. As an example, they cite the extraordinary feats that will occur at the hands of the great Dajjal at the end of time, such as his saying to the sky, “Rain!” and it raining; and to the earth, “Bring forth your vegetation!” and it bringing it forth—along with other matters reported in the authentic hadiths.

A modern example of this is a story which I read today in the August issue, in the sixth year, of the magazine al-Mukhtar, under the title, “This World Full of Mysteries Beyond the Five Senses,” p. 23: “A young woman went to South Africa to marry her fiancé. After bitter quarrels with him, she broke off her engagement after three weeks. The young woman began pacing her room anxiously, crying out inwardly without cease: ‘Oh, Mother—what am I to do?’ Yet she decided not to trouble her mother by telling her what had happened. Four weeks later, she received a letter from her mother which said: ‘What happened? I was going down the stairs when I heard you crying out, “Oh, Mother—what am I to do?”’ The date of the letter coincided with the date on which she had been crying out inwardly.”

The article in question contains other examples of what is now called “telepathy” and “clairvoyance,” and is known as “second sight.” We have confined ourselves to the example cited because it most closely resembles the story of Umar, may Allah be pleased with him—a story which I have often heard Muslims deny, thinking either that it is irrational or that it entails attributing knowledge of the unseen to Umar. Yet we find others, namely the Sufis to whom we have referred, exploiting it to establish the possibility of