When this conviction takes firm root in their hearts and ferments within their souls, then—whenever they are commanded to obey and to abandon their pleasures—they resemble a man who keeps saying to his son: “Your teacher—should you write well, excel, show good manners, and never disobey him—may still find a pretext against you and punish you; but if you grow lazy, idle, neglect your work, and abandon his instructions, he may perhaps draw you close and honor you!” With such talk he plants in the child’s heart a distrust that leaves him unable to rely on the teacher’s threats for wrongdoing or on his promises for good conduct.

Later, when the boy grows up and becomes fit for dealings and offices, the man tells him: “This is the ruler of our land: he will take a thief from prison and make him a minister or a governor, while he will seize the skilled, capable man devoted to his task, keep him in prison forever, then kill and crucify him!” By saying this he alienates the young man from his ruler, strips away all confidence in the ruler’s promises and warnings, removes love for him from his heart, and causes him to fear him with the dread one feels for an oppressor who punishes the virtuous and torments the innocent.

Thus this poor soul is left bankrupt of any belief that deeds can help or harm: he no longer finds comfort in doing good, nor feels any unease when doing evil.

Is there any more powerful way to repel people from Allah and to make Him hateful to His servants than this? Even if the atheists strove with all their might to make the religion detestable and to alienate people from Allah, they could not devise anything worse!

Yet the advocate of this method imagines that he is upholding tawḥīd (monotheism) and qadar (the Divine decree), refuting the innovators, and supporting the religion. By Allah, a rational enemy is less harmful than an ignorant friend.

All the revealed Books of Allah and all His messengers bear witness to the very opposite of that claim—above all the Quran. If callers to the faith would but adopt the path by which Allah and His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, invited humanity to Him, the world would be set right with a rectitude that admits no corruption thereafter.