Then He, exalted is He, said:

“By Me he hears, by Me he sees, by Me he strikes, and by Me he walks.”

Yet those people claim that it is the Lord Himself who hears, sees, strikes, and walks, whereas the Messenger simply said, “by Me.” He went on to say:

“If he asks Me, I will surely give him; and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely grant him refuge.”

Thus the servant is cast as the petitioner and seeker of protection, and the Lord as the One petitioned and the Giver of protection—an arrangement that flatly contradicts the doctrine of union.

His words “by Me he hears” are like the idiom, “as long as his lips move in remembrance of Me,” both referring to an intellectual model. Likewise, the divine saying “then Allah will be in his heart” means His knowledge, His love, His guidance, and His patronage; this, too, is an intellectual paradigm. It is by means of what lies in his heart that the servant hears, sees, strikes, and walks.

When one created being loves, reveres, or obeys another, he speaks in the same manner, saying, “You are in my heart and in my very soul; you are ever before my eyes.” Hence the poet said:

Your image is before my eyes, your name upon my tongue;
Within my heart you dwell—so where could you ever be absent?

Another poet declared:

How strange it is: I yearn for them,
And question every passer-by about them while they are with me.
My eye still searches for them, though they sit in its very pupil;
My heart longs for them, though they rest between my ribs.