so these mystics who claim to behold the cosmic reality yet pay no heed to the divine commands and prohibitions are worse than the Qadariyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and those of their ilk. The latter are likened to the Magians, whereas the former are likened to the idolaters who declared, “If Allah had willed, we and our fathers would not have committed idolatry, nor would we have forbidden anything” (6:148). And the idolaters are more evil than the Magians.

[The Foundation of Islam: The Two Testimonies]

This is a mighty principle that every Muslim must know, for it is the very cornerstone of Islam—what distinguishes the people of faith from the people of unbelief: faith in Allah’s oneness and in His Messenger; bearing witness that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

Many people have fallen short regarding the true meaning of these two fundamentals, or of one of them, all the while imagining themselves to have reached the pinnacle of realization, monotheism, knowledge, and gnosis. A person’s acknowledgment that Allah is the Lord, Sovereign, and Creator of everything will not deliver him from Allah’s punishment unless it is joined to the confession that there is no god but Allah—meaning that none deserves worship but Him—and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, so that he must believe him in what he