a believer, and a believer begets a disbeliever. Since this is so, it is clear that belief in the reality of the divine attributes—even belief that Allah is just like His creation—neither necessitates idol worship nor calls or impels anyone to it. The most that can be said is that believing Allah, Most High and Most Holy, to be like human beings allows someone to fashion an idol in Allah’s image, whereas someone who does not hold this belief would not fashion an idol in His image. That belief would thus be a condition for fashioning an idol in this way.

Even if this much is established, it does not necessarily entail that the belief is false. Every falsehood in the world—whether a belief, an act of will, or a consequence of either—is conditional upon sound things and sound beliefs. The unsoundness of these conditional offshoots does not indicate the unsoundness of the foundations upon which they depend. A person can perform no action unless he is alive, capable, and conscious; yet the unsoundness of his beliefs and acts of will does not indicate that these attributes are unsound.

Those who associated partners with Allah, Most High and Most Holy, and worshipped another god alongside Him used to say, “We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah,” and, “These are our intercessors with Allah.” They believed that Allah owned them, as they used to say in their pilgrimage invocation: “Here I am at Your service. You have no partner, except a partner who belongs to You: You own him and whatever he owns.”

Allah Most High has said: “He sets forth for you an example from yourselves: do you have