as well as their affirmation of the reality of the angels and the Speech of Allah. In this respect they—the Jews and Christians—are better than those philosophers, except for any Jew or Christian who has embraced the philosophers’ creed; such a person combines two forms of unbelief and is therefore in a worse state than either group.

True felicity rests on two conditions: faith and righteous action—beneficial knowledge joined to righteous deeds, wholesome words joined to righteous deeds—and both are acceptable only when they conform to the messengers’ guidance. ʿUbayy ibn Kaʿb (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “Hold fast to the Path and the Sunnah. No servant who keeps to the Path and the Sunnah, remembers Allah in private, and whose skin shivers from awe of Allah, but that his sins fall away from him like dry leaves from a tree. And no servant who keeps to the Path and the Sunnah, remembers Allah in private, and whose eyes overflow with tears from awe of Allah, will ever be touched by the Fire. A moderate deed upon the Path and the Sunnah is better than strenuous effort that contravenes the Path and the Sunnah. Therefore strive to ensure that all your deeds—whether strenuous or moderate—follow the way of the prophets and their practices.”

These people imagined that perfection lies only in knowledge and that action is merely a means; consequently, in both their knowledge and their deeds they departed from the path and practice of the prophets. The Christians, because they introduced elements of shirk and innovation into their worship, deviated from ḥanīfiyya, whose essence is to worship Allah alone and to worship Him only through what He has prescribed, not through innovations. Concerning the Christians Allah, Exalted is He, says:

“They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords apart from Allah, and (also) the Messiah, son of Mary, while they were commanded to worship only one God. There is no deity but Him. Exalted is He above what they associate with Him.” (Sūrat al-Tawbah 9:31)

He also says: “But monasticism they themselves invented; We did not prescribe it for them—(they devised it) only to seek Allah’s pleasure…” (Sūrat al-Ḥadīd 57:27)