the Messenger of God, God’s blessings and peace be upon him, put forward and appointed, and they prefer their judgment to his, what do you think their states are toward the Pole? How can one renown compare with the other? Far indeed! We have triumphed, ‘and those pursuing falsehood have lost’ [Ghafir 40:78].
By God, none calls to God except one calling with insight, not one calling upon supposition and judging by it.
Surely those in this state restrict for Muhammad’s community, God’s blessings and peace be upon him, what God made broad for them. God therefore constricts their affairs in the Hereafter and makes the demands and reckoning severe upon them on the Day of Resurrection, because they made it severe upon God’s servants, forbidding them to move from one legal school to another in a case to remove hardship, believing this to be playing with religion. They did not know that through this assertion they had departed from religion.
God’s Revealed Law is broader, and His ruling more encompassing and beneficial. ‘Stop them: they are to be questioned. What is wrong with you that you do not help one another? Rather, today they surrender’ [al-Saffat 37:24–26]. This is their state on the Day of Resurrection. ‘No permission is given them to make excuses’ [al-Mursalat 77:36].
This Pole possesses the station of perfection, unrestricted by an attribute. He is the time’s wise one, appearing only through the time’s ruling and what its state requires. Will is under his ruling; he is not under will’s ruling. He therefore possesses mastery.
(The First Pole’s Qualities)
He possesses ten qualities:
