that their creation is a prerequisite for their knowing Him; it does not imply that the knowledge they acquired is the purpose for which they were created. This is similar to al-Suddī’s statement, for they remain polytheists despite this general acknowledgment, as He says:

“And when your Lord took from the children of Adam…”

But this is not worship. These “four views” represent the position of those who recognized that the verse is general and therefore sought to interpret it as referring to a form of worship encompassing all humans and jinn. They believed that interpreting it as worship in its familiar sense—obedience to Allah and obedience to His messengers—would necessarily imply that such worship actually occurred among them, whereas it did not. They therefore sought to interpret it as a form of worship that actually occurred. They thought that interpreting it as worship that did not occur would commit them to the position of the Qadariyyah: that He created them to worship Him, but they disobeyed Him independently of His will and power. Thus they sought to avoid the position of the Qadariyyah, and they are excusable for seeking to avoid it.

Yet they interpreted the verse in a way that was not intended. This happens to many people concerning verses whose apparent meanings the people of innovation invoke as evidence. For example, the Rāfidah invoke His words:

“And wipe your heads and your feet”

as evidence for wiping the tops of the feet. We then find their opponents advancing weak explanations. One says that “your feet” takes the genitive case through proximity to an adjacent word, as in the expression juhr dabbin kharib (“a ruined lizard’s burrow”), and other similarly weak explanations. The same applies to what they have said concerning the statement, “Thus Adam prevailed over Moses in argument,” and similar texts.

The “sixth view”—although Abū al-Faraj mentioned only four views concerning the verse—is the position held by the majority of Muslims: Allah created them to worship Him, meaning to do what they were commanded to do. Hence Muslims, past and present, are found citing this verse as evidence for this