and if they are absent, this indicates that the obligatory faith has not been attained in the heart. This is like the words of the Most High:
“You will not find people who believe in Allah and the Last Day showing affection to those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even if they are their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their kindred. Those are the ones in whose hearts He has inscribed faith and whom He has strengthened with a spirit from Him.”
He thus states that you will not find a believer showing affection to those who oppose Allah and His Messenger. Faith itself is incompatible with such affection, just as either of two opposites excludes the other. When faith is present, its opposite—allegiance to Allah’s enemies—is absent. If a man gives allegiance to Allah’s enemies in his heart, this indicates that his heart lacks the obligatory faith.
Similar are His words in another passage:
“You see many of them taking those who disbelieve as allies. Evil indeed is what their souls have sent ahead for them: Allah is angry with them, and they will abide in punishment forever.”
“Had they believed in Allah, the Prophet, and what was revealed to him, they would not have taken them as allies; but many of them are defiantly disobedient.”
He thus sets out a “conditional statement,” which entails that when the condition is fulfilled, the consequent follows, using the particle law (“if”), which, together with the condition, entails the negation of the consequent. He says:
“Had they believed in Allah, the Prophet, and what was revealed to him, they would not have taken them as allies.”
This indicates that the faith mentioned excludes taking them as allies and is incompatible with it: faith and taking them as allies cannot coexist in the heart. It also indicates that whoever takes them as allies has not fulfilled the obligatory faith in Allah, the Prophet, and what was revealed to him. Similar are the words of the Most High:
“Do not take the Jews and Christians as allies; they are allies of one another. Whoever among you takes them as allies is indeed one of them.”
For in those verses He states that whoever gives them allegiance cannot be