its worshipper, with divinity. Thus, no kind of thing remains unworshipped, whether through deification or through subjection. Anyone who understands will recognize that this is inevitable. Nothing in the world is worshipped until it is invested with eminence in the worshipper’s eyes and comes to hold an elevated rank in his heart. Hence the Real has named Himself for us ‘Exalted in degrees,’ not ‘Exalted in degree.’ He thus attributed many degrees to one and the same being, for He decreed that none but Him should be worshipped—in many different degrees, each affording a locus of divine manifestation in which He was worshipped.

The greatest and highest locus of manifestation in which He is worshipped is desire, as He said:

‘Have you seen the one who has taken his own desire as his god?’
[Al-Jāthiyah 23]

It is the greatest object of worship, for nothing is worshipped except through it, whereas it is worshipped for its own sake alone. Concerning this I say:

By desire! Desire is the cause of desire;
Were there no desire in the heart, desire would not be worshipped.

Do you not see how perfect Allah’s knowledge of things is, and how He completed His description of one who worships his desire and takes it as a god by saying:

‘And Allah has led him astray with full knowledge.’
[Al-Jāthiyah 23]