Thus the former were polytheists, while these are negators: they affirm no love for God—neither a love exclusive to Him nor one shared with others—and for that reason they do not worship Him with their hearts. In their view, the sole purpose of devotional acts is to ready the soul for the bare knowledge they claim is the ultimate end.
The same applies to the Jahmites: in their hearts you will not find the love of God and His worship that lives in the hearts of His faithful servants. The most a Jahmite “worshipper” seeks is to think of the servants as day-laborers working for wages; his final aim is the payment he receives, and he is empty of love for God. The philosophers revile and look down on such people, as we have cited their words elsewhere, yet on the whole the Jahmites are still better than the philosophers. For the Jahmites at least declare worship obligatory, adhere to it, and regard it as beneficial in itself, not merely as a pathway to knowledge. This contrasts with the philosophers, the philosophizing Sufis, and the pseudo-philosophers whose worship is directed toward mystical unveiling and exerting influence, as Abū Ḥāmid and his followers describe.
One indication of the issue is their statement that God experiences delight and jubilation. Although various Muʿtazilites and other scholastic theologians—and those who follow them—have rejected this, the early generations, the leading Imams, and the People of the Sunnah affirm what is stated in the Book and the Sunnah concerning God’s love, joy, pleasure, laughter, and the like. Whatever truth these philosophers affirm already falls within those revealed meanings; yet the Sunnis articulate it with the terminology of Revelation, thereby joining perfection of meaning with perfection of wording, in agreement with both reason and Sacred Law.
These philosophers have erred in another respect as well when they said, “Pleasure is the apprehension of what is congenial insofar as it is congenial.” This is mistaken, for pleasure is not the apprehension itself; rather, apprehension is its cause. Pleasure arises from apprehension just as sound arises from motion or satiety from eating. A person desires food, eats it, and then enjoys it. Here we have three distinct things: desire, apprehension, and pleasure. Pleasure itself is not the act of eating.