denying prophethood is as incompatible with His praiseworthiness as denying the attributes of perfection or affirming partners and rivals to Him.

Second, His divinity—His being God. This necessarily entails that He is worshipped and obeyed, and there is no way to know how He is to be worshipped and obeyed except through His messengers.

Third, His being Lord. Lordship entails commanding and forbidding His servants, rewarding those who do good for their goodness, and recompensing those who do evil for their evil. This is the reality of lordship, and it cannot be fulfilled without messengership and prophethood.

Fourth, His being the Most Merciful, the Bestower of mercy. The perfection of His mercy entails making Himself and His attributes known to His servants, showing them what brings them nearer to Him and what distances them from Him, rewarding them for obeying Him, and granting them the finest recompense. This cannot be fulfilled without messengership and prophethood; thus His mercy requires them.

Fifth, His sovereignty. Sovereignty entails exercising authority through speech, just as ownership entails exercising control through action. A king exercises authority through his commands and speech, so that his orders and decrees are carried out wherever he wills. An owner exercises control over what he owns through his actions. Allah possesses both sovereignty and ownership, and He governs His creation through speech and action.

His governance through speech is of two kinds: through His words of universal decree and through His words of religious command. The perfection of sovereignty requires both. Sending messengers is therefore required by the perfection of His sovereignty and dominion. This is sovereignty as understood by people’s innate dispositions and reason. Any king who has no messengers to dispatch throughout the regions of his kingdom is no king. By this same reasoning, one knows that His angels exist and that faith in them is a necessary implication of faith in His sovereignty, for they are Allah’s messengers in His creation and His command.

Sixth, the reality of the Day of Judgment. This is the Day of Recompense, on which Allah judges His servants according to their deeds, whether good or evil. This can only be after the establishment of messengership and prophethood,