no one has ever worshipped anyone but Him.

Thus Ibn ʿArabī, while vindicating the disbelievers among Noah’s people, says:
“And they schemed a mighty scheme” [Q 71:22]. He comments: “Calling people to Allah is itself a ruse against the one invited, for he was never absent at the beginning that he should be summoned at the end—‘Call to Allah.’ This is the very essence of guile. They therefore answered him with guile, just as he had invited them with guile, and in their stratagem they said:

‘Do not abandon your gods; do not forsake Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, or Nasr.’ [Q 71:23]

Had they abandoned those deities, they would have lost their knowledge of the Real in direct proportion to what they had abandoned of them. For the Real has an aspect in every object of worship: it is recognised by those who know, and missed by those who do not.

Likewise He has said to the followers of Muhammad:
‘Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him.’ [Q 17:23]

That is to say, He has passed judgment—and whatever Allah judges must inevitably occur. The gnostic therefore knows Whom he worships and in what form He has manifested so as to be worshipped. He realises that plurality and differentiation are like the limbs of a tangible body, or the immaterial faculties within spiritual forms. Thus, in every object of worship, nothing is truly worshipped but Allah.

On this basis that unbeliever even pronounced Pharaoh correct when he said, ‘I am your Lord Most High.’