The eighth point is that this drawing near, the placing of the covering, and the address occur during the questioning, when the servant is afraid, not secure, and it has not yet become apparent to him that Allah will forgive him and show him mercy. As the authentic hadith states: “Allah draws the believer near, places His covering over him, and conceals him. He then says, ‘Do you acknowledge such-and-such a sin?’ He replies, ‘Yes, my Lord.’ Then, when He has made him acknowledge his sins and he considers himself doomed, He says, ‘I concealed them for you in this world, and I forgive them for you today.’” Thus, if the servant considers himself doomed while near to Allah, being addressed and made to acknowledge his sins, before the Lord tells him that He has forgiven him, then the nearness to Allah mentioned here cannot mean nearness to His mercy, security, and compassion.

The ninth point is that if mercy, compassion, and security are attributes of Allah Most High, then nearness to them is nearness to the One who possesses those attributes, as explained earlier. If, however, they are self-subsisting entities created by Allah Most High, it is known that, during the reckoning on the plains of Resurrection, there are no created bodies there through which the servants are shown mercy, for that occurs only in Paradise. If, on the plain of reckoning, there are no created bodies of mercy that Allah has prepared