both the question and the answer were invalid, sound questions would have sufficed for someone other than the Messenger, without any need for invalid ones. How much more, then, for the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace! He could have asked, “Who is your Lord? Whom do you worship?” As he said to Husayn al-Khuzāʿī:

“Husayn, how many gods do you worship today?”

He replied, “I worship seven gods: six on earth and one in heaven.”

He asked, “Which one do you turn to in hope and fear?”

He replied, “The One in heaven.”

He said, “Embrace Islam, and I will teach you a phrase through which Allah will benefit you.” When Husayn embraced Islam, he asked him about the supplication. He said, “Say: ‘O Allah, inspire me to right guidance and protect me from the evil of my own soul.’”

This was narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad and by others.

[The third argument]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed the servant to say, “I believe in Allah,” and, in another narration, “and His Messenger.” This is a way of countering something harmful with its beneficial opposite, for saying, “I believe in Allah,” drives corrupt whisperings from his heart.

This is why Satan withdraws when Allah is remembered and whispers when one neglects to remember Allah. Hence he is called “the whisperer who withdraws”: he crouches upon the heart of the son of Adam, but when the person remembers Allah, he withdraws. Khunūs means concealing oneself while lowering oneself; hence the stars are called al-khunnas (those that withdraw).

Abū Hurayra said:

“I met the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, on one of the streets of Medina while I was in a state of major ritual impurity, so I slipped away from him.”