The third aspect is that no created being holds any benefit or harm for the servant, no giving or withholding, no guidance or misguidance, no victory or abandonment, no lowering or raising, no honor or humiliation. Rather, it is his Lord who created him, provided for him, granted him sight, guided him, and poured His favors upon him. If Allah afflicts him with hardship, none can lift it but He; and if He grants him a blessing, none can withhold it but He. As for any human being, he can neither benefit nor harm except by Allah’s permission. This aspect is clearer to the general public than the first; hence the Qur’an addresses them with it more often. Yet when an intelligent reader reflects on the Qur’anic method, he finds that through this aspect Allah is in fact summoning His servants to the first.

This perspective therefore calls for relying on Allah, seeking His help, invoking Him, and asking of Him alone. It also demands loving Allah and worshipping Him in thanks for His kindness to His servant, for the abundance of His favors, and for the servant’s constant need of Him in all these blessings. But once they worship, love, and rely on Him from this standpoint, they enter into the first aspect.

Its counterpart in this world is a person on whom a severe calamity, crushing poverty, or unsettling fear descends. He turns to Allah in earnest supplication until Allah opens for him such sweetness in intimate converse with Him that it becomes dearer to him than the very need that—