nor any true bliss unless they know Him and worship Him (1), making Him alone the ultimate object of their quest and the final aim of their desire; His remembrance and nearness (2) are the delight of their eyes and the life of their hearts. Whenever they are deprived of that, their state becomes far worse than that of livestock; the beasts enjoy a sweeter life in this world and are safer in their end in the next.

Once it is realized that a servant’s need to know his Lord, to love Him, to worship Him, and to draw close to Him surpasses every other need, it follows that the avenues that lead to such knowledge are, without exception, the easiest, clearest, surest, and most accessible of all forms of knowledge, and that the Lord’s exposition of them is clearer than any other exposition. Therefore, if figurative interpretation is unleashed upon the texts that contain these matters, applying it (3) to the passages that speak of the angels would be far easier still.

This is evident from the fact that the Lord, exalted be He, has not conveyed to His servants concerning the attributes, rank, deeds, and names of His angels even a tenth of a tenth of what He has conveyed to them about the qualities of His own majesty, the perfections of His attributes, His names, and His acts. If the latter can be deemed amenable to interpretation, then the verses that mention the angels are even more deserving of such treatment (4).

For that very reason the atheists have re-interpreted them (5), just as they re-interpreted the passages on the resurrection and the Last Day, offering explanations no less far-fetched than the Jahmites’ interpretations of the texts on the divine attributes. This faction went on to reinterpret virtually all reports—past and future alike—and they said to the Jahmite interpreters, “Reason shall be the judge between us and you, for the Quran—indeed, all the revealed books—are filled with mention…”