differentiation and multiplicity are like the organs of a perceptible form and the immaterial faculties of a spiritual form. Thus, in every object of worship, none but Allah was worshipped. The lower one is he who imagines divinity in it; without this imagining, neither stones nor anything else would have been worshipped. Hence His saying:

‘Say: Name them.’ [al-Ra'd 33]

Had they named them, they would have called them stones, trees, and a star. Had they been asked, ‘Whom did you worship?’ they would have replied, ‘A god.’ They would not have said ‘Allah’ or ‘the God.’ The higher one did not imagine this, but said, ‘This is a divine manifestation that ought to be venerated,’ and so does not confine himself to it. The lower one, who relies on imagination, says:

‘We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.’ [al-Zumar 3]

The higher one, who possesses knowledge, says:

‘Your God is One God, so submit to Him.’ [al-Hajj 34]

Wherever He appears. ‘And give glad tidings to the humble’—those whose natural fire has subsided. Thus they said ‘a god,’ not ‘nature.’”

He also said in the chapter on Aaron, mentioning the story of the calf:

“Moses, peace be upon him, understood the matter better than Aaron, because he knew what the calf-worshippers had worshipped, knowing that Allah had decreed