form He manifested Himself and was thus worshipped, and that differentiation and multiplicity are like the limbs of a perceptible form and the immaterial faculties of a spiritual form. Thus, in every object of worship, none but Allah is worshipped. The person of lower rank imagines divinity in it; without this imagining, neither stones nor anything else would be worshipped. Hence His words: “Say: Name them” [al-Raʿd 33]. Had they named them, they would have called them stones, trees, and stars. But had they been asked, “Whom did you worship?” they would have answered, “A god.” They would not have said “Allah” or “the God.”

Those of higher rank do not imagine this; rather, they say, “This is a divine locus of manifestation that ought to be venerated,” and so do not confine themselves. The person of lower rank, who relies on imagination, says: “We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah” [al-Zumar 3]. The person of higher rank, who knows, says: “Your God is one God, so submit to Him” [al-Hajj 34]—those in whom the fire of their nature has died down. Thus they said “a god,” not “nature.”

“They have indeed led many astray” [Noah 24]—that is, they have bewildered them by multiplying the One through aspects and relations. “And do not increase the wrongdoers