Hence Allah, exalted is He, has brought the three together in His words: “And those who do not call upon another deity alongside Allah, nor kill a soul that Allah has made inviolable except with due right, nor commit fornication” [al-Furqan: 68].

Each of these three vices invites the others: shirk draws a person toward injustice and indecency, just as sincerity and tawḥīd repel them from him. The Exalted says, “Thus We turned away from him evil and indecency; indeed, he was one of Our devoted servants.”(1) [Yusuf: 24]. Here, evil means passionate infatuation, and indecency means fornication.

In the same way, injustice incites shirk and indecency, for shirk is the darkest form of injustice, just as the highest form of justice is tawḥīd. Justice is the companion of tawḥīd, and injustice the companion of shirk; therefore Allah, glorious is He, often pairs them. The first instance is His saying, “Allah bears witness that there is no deity but Him—and so do the angels and those endowed with knowledge—upholding justice” [Āl ʿImrān: 18]; the second is His saying, “Indeed, associating partners with Allah is a tremendous injustice” [Luqmān: 13].

Indecency likewise leads to shirk and injustice, particularly when its desire grows strong and is satisfied only through some form of wrongdoing or with the help of sorcery and the devil. Allah has linked fornication and shirk in His statement: “The fornicator marries none but a fornicatress or an idolatress, and the fornicatress is married by none but a fornicator or an idolater; that has been forbidden to the believers” [an-Nūr: 3].

Thus these three evils pull one another along and command one another. Accordingly, the weaker a heart’s tawḥīd and the deeper its shirk, the more it is given to indecency, and the stronger its attachment to images and its infatuation with them.

Similar to this is His saying: “So whatever you have been given is only the enjoyment of the life of this world, whereas what is with Allah…"