to Him by worshipping them, whereas He, Most High, has neither prescribed nor commanded this. Rather, one draws near to Him only by worshipping Him alone, without any partner.

As for his statement, “As for directional nearness, it is self-evident that it is not attained through prostration,” the reply is: What is self-evident is that a person’s body does not rise upward during prostration. His nearness, however, does not consist merely in bodily nearness, just as human beings’ nearness to and distance from one another do not consist merely in bodily proximity and separation. Rather, as one poet said:

Though our bodies have grown far apart,
The distance between our hearts is small.

For human hearts and souls have nearness and distance, movement, ascent and descent, and a station, just as the body does. A person senses the nearness of another person’s heart to his own, and its distance from it. Thus, when someone prostrates, his heart and soul draw near to Allah Most High Himself. The same applies to all righteous deeds through which one draws near to