thing and willed it. They supposed that they could not be content with Allah until they were content with everything He decrees and ordains, including disbelief, disobedience, and sin. Some of them even said, “Love is a fire that burns away from the heart everything except what the Beloved wills.” They said, “The entire universe is willed by the Beloved.” These people went grievously astray because they failed to distinguish between the religious and universal will, religious and universal permission, religious and universal command, universal and religious raising up, and universal and religious sending, as we have explained at length elsewhere.

These people ultimately cease to distinguish between what is forbidden and what is commanded, between Allah’s allies and His enemies, and between the prophets and the God-fearing. They treat those who believe and do righteous deeds like those who spread corruption on earth, the God-fearing like the wicked, and Muslims like criminals. They set aside commands and prohibitions, promises and threats, and divinely ordained laws.

They sometimes call this “reality.” By my life, it is indeed a universal reality, but this