A man who stands outside Sufism is always confused as to the Sufi's attitude towards God. He cannot make out whether the Sufi is a worshipper of God or a worshipper of self, whether the Sufi claims himself to be God, whether he is an idolater, or whether he worships the formless God in heaven.

The one who wonders like this has some reason for it, because when he sees that in this world there are believers and unbelievers, that there are some who worship God and some who do not, he cannot understand the attitude of the Sufi, he cannot decide whether the Sufi is a beginner on the spiritual path or whether he has arrived at the goal.

If he calls him a beginner he cannot prove this to himself, because of the Sufi's personality which radiates God; and if he calls him someone who has arrived at the height of spirituality then he thinks, "How can a Sufi, who is supposed to be a God-realized man, be so childlike as to worship God in the same way as everybody else does, when he says that he does not see any importance in the worship of form, that he is above it?"

Moreover, there are some attitudes of the Sufi which very much shock a religious man, an orthodox person, for the realization of the Sufi cannot always be held back. He may try to do so, but sometimes it will leap out, and then one begins to doubt whether the Sufi is really a worshipper of God or whether inwardly he feels differently towards God.

The Sufi, therefore, is a riddle to a person who cannot understand him fully, to one who stands outside Sufism, for he does not know what the Sufi believes and what he does not believe.