That is to say, for example, in his view God could be truly declared free of all fault and defect by say­ing that animals create their own actions. It was out of love for declaring God free of all fault that he did not accept the Sunnis' principles concerning the creation of actions. Whereas the other Mu'tazilite authorities were rejected because their inadequate intelligences could not aspire to the elevated princi­ples of the Sunnis and they could not fit the Sunni's extensive laws within their own narrow ideas, and so denied them. In the same way that the Mu'tazilites opposed the Sunnis in theology, so the opposition of some followers of the Sufi path outside the Prophet's (PBUH) practices is of two kinds:
The first: Like Zamakhshari, out of love for their way or state, they remain somewhat indifferent towards the conduct of the Shari'a, because through it they cannot obtain the same degree of pleasure.
As for the other kind: God forbid! They think the conduct of the Shari'a is unimportant relatively to the principles of the Sufi path. For their narrow understanding cannot comprehend those broad pleasures, and their short stations cannot attain to that elevated conduct.

EIGHTH ALLUSION

This describes eight Abysses.

The First: Some people who embark on spiritual journeying do not conform completely- to the prac­tices of the Prophet (PBUH), and fall into the abyss of preferring sainthood to prophethood. It is proved in the Twenty-Fourth and Thirty-First Words how elevated is prophethood, and how dull sainthood is in relation to it.
    The Second: Some of followers of the Sufi path fall into the abyss of preferring extremist saints to the Prophet's (PBUH) Companions and even of believing those saints to be prophets. It is proved decisively in the Twelfth and Twenty-Seventh Words and in the Addendum on the Companions, that the Companions acquired such qualities through conversation with the Prophet (PBUH) that cannot be attained through sainthood, and that the Compan­ions cannot be surpassed, and that the saints can never reach the degree of the Companions.

The Third: Some of those who are excessively bigoted concerning the Sufi path oppose the prac­tices of the Prophet (PBUH) and give them up because of their preference for the customs, conduct, and recitations of the Sufi way, which they never give up. In this way, they become slack in practising the conduct of the Shari'a, and fall into that abyss.