encloses it, and do other such things.”

I said to him, “This too is polytheism. It is not part of the Muslims’ religion, even if ignorant people practise it.” He acknowledged that it was polytheism. Indeed, a priest who was present during this discussion said upon hearing it, “Yes, on that understanding, we are polytheists.”

Some Christians would say to some Muslims, “We have a lord and a lady, and you have a lord and a lady. Our lord is the Messiah and our lady is Mary; your lord is al-Husayn and your lady is Nafīsa.”

Christians therefore rejoice in those practices of religious innovators and ignorant Muslims that accord with their own religion and resemble their practices. They want such practices to grow stronger and become more widespread. They also want to place their monks on a par with devout Muslim worshippers, and their priests on a par with Muslim scholars. They imitate Muslims, for the rational among them do not deny the validity of Islam. Rather, they say, “This is a path to Allah, and that is a path to Allah.”

This is why many hypocrites among their converts find it easy to profess Islam outwardly. In their view, Muslims and Christians are like the adherents of different schools within Islam; indeed, they call religions ‘schools.’ Yet it is well known that the adherents of the various schools—the Hanafīs, Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Hanbalīs—share one religion. By the consensus of Muslims, any of them who obeys Allah and His Messenger to the best of his ability is a believer destined for felicity.