and gratitude, in turn, belongs to the heart as love and penitence, to the tongue as praise and thanksgiving, and to the limbs as obedience and service.

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The Qur’an reiterates that the works carried out by both heart and limbs are the very cause of guidance or misguidance. Deeds arise from these two faculties that necessitate guidance just as a cause necessitates its effect; the same applies to error. Acts of righteousness give rise to guidance, and the more such deeds increase, the more guidance increases, whereas deeds of immorality produce the opposite.

This is because Allah, exalted is He, loves righteous deeds and therefore rewards them with guidance and success, while He detests deeds of wickedness and repays them with misguidance and misery.

Furthermore, He is al-Barr (the All-Benign) and He loves the people of righteousness, so He draws their hearts near to Him in proportion to the righteousness they practice. He abhors vice and its practitioners, and accordingly He distances their hearts from Him to the extent of the wickedness they commit.

An evidence for this first principle is His saying: “Alif Lām Mīm ⦗1⦘. This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for the God-fearing ⦗2⦘.” ⦗al-Baqarah: 1–2⦘

This statement entails two points:

First, He guides by means of it those who had already guarded themselves against what incurs His displeasure before the Book was sent down. For mankind—despite the diversity of their faiths and sects—has long recognized that Allah hates injustice, gross indecency (1), and corruption on earth, and He loathes those who perpetrate such acts; whereas He loves justice, benevolence, generosity, truthfulness, and the establishment of reform on earth, and He loves those who practice them.