burning it (1) and skimming off its dross.

And after all that, they still did not cast it in the likeness of a noble angel, nor of a commissioned prophet, nor even of some lofty celestial substance beyond the reach of human hands; rather, they shaped it as an earthly beast!

Even then they did not fashion it after the most majestic, powerful, and least tractable of animals—such as the lion or the elephant. Instead, they modeled it on the dullest of creatures, the one most prone to humiliation and subjugation, the kind that ploughs the fields and turns waterwheels, utterly lacking the strength to defend itself against either great or small.

What knowledge, then, do such people have of their object of worship, their prophet, and the very realities of existence?!

Indeed, anyone who could ask his prophet to “make a god for us”—and then proceed to worship a man-made deity after beholding those stupendous signs—deserves to remain ignorant of the reality of God, of His names, attributes, descriptions, and religion, and equally ignorant of the reality of the creature (2), its need, and its utter poverty before Him.

Had they truly known their Lord and His messenger, they would never have said to their prophet, “We will never believe you until we see Allah openly” (Qur’an 2:55); nor would they have said, “Go, you and your Lord, and fight—while we sit here” (Qur’an 5:24); nor would they have slain a man, flung his corpse at the doors of those innocent of the murder, while their prophet was living among them and revelation from heaven was coming to him morning and evening—as though they deemed it possible that such a deed could escape Allah’s knowledge