In connection  with this,  for a long time a matter preoccupied  my mind:  at a crucial time I execrated a group of the people of misguidance. Then an awesome collective strength arose in the face of my malediction; it both turned it back on me and prevented me from repeating it.

Then I saw that facilitated by a collective strength in its wrongful activities, that group of the people of misguidance was dragging the people along behind it. It was being successful. This was not due to compulsion alone; rather, since it had combined with a desire aroused by the power of sainthood, some of the believers were being carried away by it; they looked on the group favourably and did not consider it to be too bad.

I took fright when I perceived these two secrets. “Glory be to God!” I exclaimed, “can there be a sainthood other than that of the true way? Would the people of reality support such a terrible current of misguidance?” Then one blessed Day of ‘Arafat, following a praiseworthy Islamic practice, I recited Sura al-Ikhlas hundreds of times and through its blessings, the matter entitled “Answer to an Important Question” was imparted  to  my impotent  heart,  together  with  the  following  truth,  through  divine mercy:

As is told in the well-known, meaningful story of Jibali Baba, which dates from the time of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, some saints are in a state of ecstasy while appearing to be rational and reasonable. Others sometimes appear to be sober and in command of their reasoning faculties, and sometimes they enter a state outside this. One class of this sort are confused and cannot distinguish between things. They apply a matter they see while in a state of intoxication to things after they have returned to a state  of sobriety.  They are then  in error but do not  realize  it.  Some  ecstatics  are preserved  by God and do not enter misguidance  on their spiritual  journeying.  But others are not preserved, and may be found in the sects following innovation and misguidance. They have even been held to be unbelievers.

Thus, because  they are temporarily or permanently  in a state of ecstasy,  they resemble   “blessed   lunatics.”   And   because   they  resemble   them,   they  are   not responsible. And because they are not responsible, they are not punishable. On their ecstatic sainthood persisting, they come to support the people of misguidance and innovation;  they  spread  their  ways  to  an  extent,  and  inauspiciously  cause  some believers and people of truth to enter them.