and the immediate, visible favors He bestows, as well as the retribution He metes out to His enemies who ascribe partners to Him. All of this is clear proof that He alone is worthy of divinity.

• The fifth route is to know the attributes of the idols and rivals that are worshipped alongside Allah and treated as gods: they are, in every respect, dependent on Allah and deficient; they possess for themselves, and for those who worship them, neither benefit nor harm, nor power over death, life, or resurrection. Once this is understood, their alleged divinity is seen to be void, what people invoke apart from Allah is nothing but falsehood, and Allah is the manifest, true God.

• The sixth is the unanimous testimony of all of Allah’s scriptures to this truth and their mutual corroboration of it.

• The seventh is the consensus of the prophets, messengers, and godly scholars upon it, together with their open testimony—these being the elect of creation, the most perfected in character, intellect, knowledge, and certitude.

• The eighth is the array of proofs and signs that Allah has established in the horizons and within souls (1). These point to His oneness with the clearest and strongest evidence, proclaiming it both in word and in the language of their very state through the subtlety of His craftsmanship, the marvel of His wisdom, and the wonders of His creation.

• The ninth is what Allah has placed within His revealed law: unequivocal verses, excellent rulings, equitable rights, abundant good, the securing of every benefit, the repelling of every harm, and the manifold forms of kindness. All of this bears the strongest testimony that He is Allah—none but He deserves worship—and that His sacred law, conveyed on the tongues of His messengers, attests to that fact.