The Scholars' Position on the Sufis, Starting with Ibn Taymiyyah, and His Story with the Shaykh of the Rifa'i Order and His Challenge to Him?

I said earlier that the scholars of the Muslims, throughout the ages, have had experiences with these false messiahs. The most famous of them is Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, the Shaykh al-Islam, who challenged the Shaykh of the Rifa'is in his time, who was known as al-Bata'ih. This man used to pretend that he would enter the fire and not be burned. So he challenged them, and news of the challenge reached the Amir of Damascus at that time. He summoned the Shaykh of the path and the Shaykh al-Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah, to see how they would debate and what they would do in the end. The Shaykh al-Islam spoke with the knowledge he possessed, stating that these people are among the worst of creation, the worst of creation, and that they have no knowledge, no mindfulness of Allah, and no righteousness. Rather, they deceive people with matters in which both the righteous and the wicked, and the believer and the disbeliever, share in doing. Among the things he said was: "These people anoint their bodies with a special substance, and their clothes likewise. They enter the oven, and the fire does not burn them. I challenge them on one condition: You, O Amir, order them to remove these clothes, and you bring them clean clothes from your own store. You order them to wash their bodies with water and vinegar, then they put on these white clothes, and I enter the oven with them at that time. Whoever of us is burned is the liar." When the matter was exposed to that false messiah, what did he do? He turned on his heels. There are many, many incidents.