without duly upholding His commands and prohibitions, regarding this as entrusting his affairs to Allah, relying upon Him, and going along with the reality of divine decree. He imagines that the saying, “The servant should be with Allah like a corpse in the hands of the one washing it,” entails ceasing to observe commands and prohibitions. Thus he abandons what he has been commanded to do and does what he has been forbidden, until the light and discernment by which he distinguishes between what Allah has commanded, loved, and approved, and what He has forbidden, hated, and been displeased with, grow dim within him. He then treats as equal what Allah has distinguished, as the Most High says:

“Or do those who commit evil deeds think that We will make them like those who believe and do righteous deeds, equal in their life and their death? Evil is their judgment!”

The Most High also says:

“Shall We then treat those who submit to Allah like the criminals? What is the matter with you? How do you judge?”

And the Most High says:

“Shall We treat those who believe and do righteous deeds like those who spread corruption on earth? Or shall We treat the righteous like the wicked?”

And the Most High says:

“Say: Are those who know equal to those who do not know?”

And the Most High says:

“The blind and the seeing are not equal,”

“nor are darkness and light,”

“nor shade and scorching heat,”

“nor are the living and the dead equal. Indeed, Allah causes whom He wills to hear, but you cannot make those in the graves hear.”

There are many similar passages. Matters go so far with the extremists among them that they no longer distinguish between the command to carry out what Allah and His Prophet have prescribed in the revealed law, which distinguishes truth from falsehood—as set out in the Quran and Sunnah—and the states that occur in existence through unbelievers and the wicked. They perceive what unites all these things in that they all come about through Allah’s decree, predestination, lordship, and universal will