⦗19⦘ “Know, then, that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah, and seek forgiveness for your sin and for the believing men and believing women. Allah knows your movements and your resting place.”
Knowledge necessarily involves the heart’s acknowledgment and comprehension of the meaning one is required to know. Its completion lies in acting in accordance with it.
This knowledge that Allah has commanded—knowledge of Allah’s oneness—is an individual obligation upon every human being. It is waived for no one, whoever he may be; rather, everyone is in dire need of it. There are several paths to knowing that there is no god worthy of worship except Him:
The first—and indeed the greatest—is to contemplate His names, attributes, and acts, which attest to His perfection, greatness, and majesty (1). These compel a person to exert himself in devotion to Him and in worshiping the perfect Lord, to whom belong all praise, glory, majesty, and beauty.
The second is to know that He alone creates and governs, and thereby to know that He alone is worthy of worship.
The third is to know that He alone bestows all blessings, outward and inward, religious and worldly. This causes the heart to become attached to Him, to love Him, and to worship Him alone, without partner.
The fourth is what we see and hear of His rewarding His devoted servants who uphold His oneness—with victory and immediate blessings—and of His punishing His enemies who associate partners with Him. This leads one to know that He alone is worthy of all worship.
The fifth is to recognize the qualities of the idols and rivals that have been worshiped alongside Allah and taken as gods: they are deficient in every respect and inherently needy. They control neither benefit nor harm for themselves or their worshipers, nor do they possess power over death, life, or resurrection. They cannot support those who worship them or benefit them by even an atom’s weight, whether by bringing about good or warding off harm. Knowing this necessarily leads to the knowledge that there is no god worthy of worship except Him and that the divinity of all besides Him is false.
The sixth is the unanimous agreement of Allah’s scriptures upon this truth.
The seventh is that the foremost among creation—those who are the most perfect of all creatures in character, intellect, insight, sound judgment, and knowledge—have testified to this for Allah. They are the messengers, the prophets, and the godly scholars.
The eighth is the proofs Allah has established in the horizons and within human beings. These point to His oneness in the clearest manner and proclaim it through their very condition, by virtue of the subtleties of His craftsmanship, His exquisite wisdom, and the wonders of His creation that He has placed within them.
These are the paths through which Allah repeatedly calls creation to the truth that there is no god worthy of worship except Him, setting them forth and reiterating them in His Book. When the servant reflects upon even some of them, he will inevitably attain certainty and knowledge of this truth. How much more so when they all converge, corroborate one another, and agree, and the proofs of divine oneness arise on every side! Faith and knowledge of it then become firmly rooted in the servant’s heart, like deeply anchored mountains. Neither specious doubts nor fancies can shake them; rather, with every recurrence of falsehood and doubt, they only grow and become more complete.
Furthermore, consider the supreme proof and momentous matter: reflecting upon this magnificent Quran and contemplating its verses. It is the greatest gateway to knowledge of divine oneness, and through it one acquires a grasp of its details and general principles that cannot be acquired elsewhere.
His words, “and seek forgiveness for your sin,” mean: Ask Allah to forgive your sin by pursuing the means of forgiveness, including repentance, supplication for forgiveness, good deeds that erase sins, abandoning sins, and pardoning others’ offenses.
“And” also seek forgiveness “for the believing men and believing women,” for, by virtue of their faith, they have rights over every Muslim man and woman.
Among their rights is that one should supplicate for them and seek forgiveness for their sins. If one is commanded to seek forgiveness for them—which entails the removal of their sins and the punishment due for them—then this necessarily includes advising them sincerely, loving for them the good that ⦗788⦘ one loves for oneself, disliking for them the evil that one dislikes for oneself, directing them to what is beneficial to them, forbidding them from what is harmful to them, pardoning their misdeeds and faults, and striving to bring them together in a manner that reconciles their hearts and removes the rancor among them that leads to hostility and division, through which their sins and acts of disobedience multiply.
“Allah knows your movements”—that is, your actions and movements, your comings and goings—“and your resting place,” where you settle. He knows you whether moving or still, and He will recompense you for all of that with the fullest and most complete recompense.