Allah, His wise choice, His kindness, and His mercy require that everyone should seek to worship Allah and strive in His cause, through knowledge and action according to his ability, so that all devotion is to Allah and his aim is for Allah’s word to be supreme. His love, hatred, enmity, praise, and blame should be solely for Allah—not for any particular person.

The guide in the fullest sense—who guides to every good and whose guidance everyone needs at all times—is Allah’s Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The best of his community are those who follow him most closely. This is achieved through faith, certainty, and striving, as Allah Most High says:

“The believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Messenger, then never doubt,”

up to His words:

“It is they who are the truthful.”

Thus Allah, glorified and exalted be He, explains that a believer must possess three things:

First: to believe in Allah and His Messenger.

Second: not to doubt thereafter—that is, to remain certain and steadfast.

Certainty is the opposite of doubt, and doubt is of two kinds: uncertainty arising from insufficient knowledge, and agitation within the heart. Both arise from a deficiency in one’s state of faith. Faith necessarily requires knowledge within the heart, and not in every place does one have knowledge that one understands. It also requires the heart’s action, or its insight, steadfastness, reassurance, tranquillity, reliance upon Allah, sincerity, and turning to Allah Most High. All these matters are mentioned in the Quran.

One says: “Such-and-such disquieted me