What is the religious view on Sufi orders as a means of reaching God, given the existence of practices such as seeking intercession through deceased saints, visiting and circumambulating shrines and sacrificing at them, and excessively kissing the hands of shaykhs and venerating them?

The way to know the truth is through the Qur’an and Sunnah, understood according to the comprehension of the righteous predecessors of the Ummah. The true religion is that which the early Muslims followed before divisions arose, as Imam Malik said: "What was not religion then will not be religion today." The early Sufis encouraged adherence to the Qur’an and Sunnah, as Al-Junayd said: "Our knowledge is bound by the Qur’an and Sunnah," and Sahl al-Tustari said: "Every spiritual experience not attested to by the Qur’an and Sunnah is false." As for the later Sufis, they mixed Sufism with philosophy, which resulted in a false doctrine and deviant thought that cannot rightly be attributed to Islam.