and the one most incumbent upon him every day and night, in every prayer, because of his desperate need for the guidance he seeks. No other supplication can take its place.

Truly realizing “You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help” in knowledge, understanding, practice, and spiritual state brings healing from the disease of corruption in the heart and intent. Corruption of intent concerns both ends and means. Whoever pursues an end that will cease, fade, and perish, employing various means to reach it, has corrupt intent in both respects. Such is the condition of everyone whose ultimate aim is something other than Allah and servitude to Him: the polytheists, those who follow their desires and seek nothing beyond them, and those who pursue power, striving to establish their authority by any means, whether true or false.

When truth stands in the way of their authority, they crush it and trample it underfoot. If they cannot do that, they repel it as they would an assailant. If they cannot do that, they obstruct its progress and turn aside onto another road, remaining ready to repel it whenever possible. When they find no escape from it, they allow its name on the coinage and in the sermon, while stripping it of all authority to administer, judge, or enforce. Yet if truth comes to their aid and is on their side, they charge forward boldly and come to it submissively—not because it is true, but because it suits their purposes and desires and enables them to prevail:

24: 48: 49: 50 “When they are called to Allah and His Messenger so that he may judge between them, a group of them turns away. But if the right is theirs, they come to him submissively. Is there sickness in their hearts, or have they fallen into doubt? Or do they fear that Allah and His Messenger will wrong them? Rather, it is they who are the wrongdoers.”

The point is that their intent is corrupt in both their ends and their means. When the ends they pursued come to nothing, fade, and perish, they suffer the greatest loss and regret. They will feel the deepest remorse and anguish when truth is established and falsehood comes to nothing, when the bonds that linked them together are severed, and they become certain that they have been cut off from the caravan of success and happiness. This often becomes apparent in this world, and more clearly still when they depart from it and come before Allah. It becomes increasingly evident and certain in the barzakh (the intermediate life), and is fully laid bare on the Day of Meeting, when realities are established, those who uphold the truth triumph, those who follow falsehood lose, and they realize