knowing Him and loving Him. For were the soul to know the Necessary Being while hating Him, recoiling from Him, and reviling Him, it would be wretched and tormented. In fact, such people are among the most miserable and severely punished—this was the plight of Satan, Pharaoh, and many other disbelievers. They recognized the truth but did not love or follow it, and thus suffered the harshest punishment.

Rather, loving God, Exalted be He, is the perfection sought through knowing Him, and it is an integral part of worship. Worship, by its very nature, unites perfect love with perfect humility. This is the core of the religion of Abraham, the Intimate Friend (khalīl) and leader of the pure monotheists, about whom God, Most High, says:

“Indeed, Abraham was a community unto himself—devoutly obedient to God, upright, and he was not of the polytheists.” (Qur’an 16:120)

Here, an ummah is one who is followed, just as a qudwa is one who is emulated, as God also says:

“And [remember] when Abraham’s Lord tested him with certain words, and he fulfilled them. He said, ‘I am appointing you as a leader for mankind.’” (Qur’an 2:124)

Abraham the Intimate Friend stood in opposition to people such as Nimrod and others like him.

Thus, worshipping God alone, loving Him, and exalting Him constitute some of the soul’s greatest perfections and sources of happiness; its felicity does not lie in bare knowledge devoid of love, worship, and devotion. The claim of these philosophers resembles that of Jahm and his followers, who reduce faith to mere inward knowledge or assent and exclude love and other deeds of the heart from the reality of faith. We have refuted their view elsewhere.

These philosophers have combined every form of evil. The doctrine of Jahm ibn Ṣafwān—which the early generations vehemently rejected—is only one part of their stance. Indeed, even the polytheists who set up rivals beside God and love them as they love God are better than these philosophers: those idolaters at least affirmed love for God and regarded it as part of human perfection, though they went astray by loving others alongside Him.