these acts of renunciation. This means that true knowledge of God and human perfections are attained through giving up what is other than God?

The Answer: If man consisted of only a heart, one would have to give up everything other than God and to leave behind even the divine names and attributes and bind one’s heart to the divine essence alone. But man possesses many senses and subtle faculties charged with duties, such as the mind, spirit, soul, and others. The perfect man is he who, driving all those subtle senses towards reality on the different ways of worship particular to them, marches heroically like the Companions in a broad arena and rich fashion towards the goal, with the heart as commander and the subtle faculties as soldiers. For the heart to abandon its soldiers in order to save only itself and to proceed on its own is the cause not of pride, but of distress.

##### Fourth Question

Fourth Question: Where does the claim of the Companions’ superiority spring from? And who put it forward? Why should this matter be made the subject of discussion at this time? Also, why is there this claim of equality with the great interpreters of the law?

The Answer: There are two groups who say these things. Some are the sincere religious scholars and men of religion who, seeing certain Hadiths, open up such discussions in order to encourage and hearten the pious and the upright at this time. We have nothing to say to them. They are anyway few and are quickly made aware. The other group, however, consists of fearsome, conceited people who want to spread their denial of the schools of law by claiming equality with the great interpreters of the law, and to further their irreligion by claiming equality with the Companions. For firstly, those people of misguidance have become depraved and have become addicted to depravity and cannot carry out the obligations of the Shari‘a since they form an obstacle to their depravity. In order to find a pretext for themselves, they say: “These questions may be interpreted. The schools of law are opposed to each other in these matters. The interpreters of the law were human beings like us and may have made mistakes. In which case, like them we shall interpret the divine law and perform our worship as we wish. Why should we be compelled to follow them?” Thus, due to these Satanic wiles, the wretches put themselves outside the fold of the schools of law. It is demonstrated clearly in the Twenty-Seventh Word just how baseless and rotten these claims are, so we refer you to that.

Secondly; that group of the people of misguidance saw that the matter does not end with the interpreters of the law, for what lay on their shoulders were only the theoretical matters of religion. Whereas this group wants to give up and change the essential teachings. If they say: “We are better than them,” the matter does not finish there. For interpreters of the