the cheapest of prices (1); thus divine favour abandoned them and (2) humiliation clung to them, and they traded the patronage of God, His angels, His messengers, and His devotees for the patronage of Satan.

Or consider a creed whose whole structure is built on the claim that the Lord of all realms is nothing more than an absolute notion lodged in the mind, with no objective reality—neither inside the universe nor outside it, neither connected to it nor separate from it, neither immanent nor transcendent. He (3) neither hears nor sees, knows nothing of created things, and does not act as He wills; He possesses no life, no power, no will, and no choice. He did not create the heavens and the earth in six days; on the contrary, the heavens and the earth have, they say, always existed alongside Him, their existence concurrent with His, never brought forth after non-existence, and He lacks the power to annihilate them now that they exist. He has (4) never sent down a scripture to a human being nor dispatched a messenger to humankind—so there is no law to follow, no messenger to obey, no abode beyond this abode, no beginning for the universe and no return, no resurrection or rising, no Garden and no Fire. Reality, they insist, is nothing but nine celestial spheres, ten intellects, four elements, revolving orbs, wandering stars, wombs that thrust forth, and an earth that swallows up; and: “There is nothing but our worldly life: we die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” They have no knowledge of this; they do but conjecture (Q 45:24).

I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, without partner, without opposite or rival, without consort, child, or equal; exalted is He above the fabrications of the false and their baseless surmises (5)