His statement: “or denies His lordship.” Denial is different from shirk, for shirk involves affirming two entities, whereas this is denial. Such a person says: Allah the Exalted is not a Lord, and people have no lord—like the communists, the materialists, a group among the secularists, and those like them. They deny the Lord and say, as their predecessors said:
“There is nothing but our worldly life: we die and we live, and nothing destroys us except time.” [al-Jathiyah 45:24]
We ask Allah for well-being. Allah has stripped their hearts of certainty and of perceiving the signs:
“But what benefit will signs and warnings be to a people who do not believe?” [Yunus 10:101]
“How many a sign there is in the heavens and the earth which they pass by, while turning away from it!” [Yusuf 12:105]
Otherwise, how can any rational person deny the lordship of Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He? One who denies Allah denies his own existence before he denies Allah. For we say to him: Who created you? Did your father create you? Was your father the one who created this gushing fluid from which the embryo is formed? Did your mother create these ova, into which these sperm enter, so that a human being is formed?
Either he will say no, or he will say yes. If he says yes, we say: In which laboratory did your father or mother produce them? He will be left speechless. But if he says, “Neither my father nor my mother created them,” we say: Then who created them? Did your leader create them? Certainly, he will say no. Then who created them? The conclusion is that he will say: Allah—unless he stubbornly persists, in which case speaking with him is of no benefit.
This Pharaoh knew that the One who sent down the Torah to Moses, peace be upon him, was Allah. Moses addressed him in these words:
“You certainly know that none has sent these down as clear proofs except the Lord of the heavens and the earth.” [al-Isra 17:102]
Pharaoh did not say, “I do not know”; rather, he remained silent. Yet despite this, he said to his people:
“I am your most exalted lord.” [al-Nazi'at 79:24]
And he said: