these degrees is “loving servitude,” which is devotion to the beloved. The mutayyam is the one worshipped, and Taym Allāh means “servant of Allah.” For the lover remains mindful of his beloved, enslaved and humbled before him. Moreover, turning to Him also implies love, as do similar expressions, as explained earlier.

Furthermore, even if their claim were true—that this usage is figurative because it involves omitted and implied words—a figurative expression may only be used with an indication clarifying the intended meaning. It is well known that neither Allah’s Book nor His Messenger’s Sunnah contains anything that rules out Allah Himself being loved and confines love to deeds alone, whether through an indication within the passage or separate from it. Nor does reason provide any such indication.

Moreover, one sign of figurative usage is that it may properly be negated without qualification. It would therefore have to be permissible to say without qualification that Allah neither loves nor is loved, just as their leader, al-Jaʿd ibn Dirham, declared that Allah did not take Abraham as a close friend and did not truly speak to Moses. Yet it is well known that this is inadmissible by the consensus of the Muslims. Thus, consensus establishes that this usage is not figurative but literal.

Furthermore, Allah has distinguished between love for Him and love of deeds done for Him in His statement, Exalted is He:

“Dearer to you than Allah, His Messenger, and striving in His cause.”

Likewise, He has distinguished between love for Him and love for His Messenger in His statement, Exalted is He:

“Dearer to you than Allah and His Messenger.”

If loving Him meant nothing more than loving deeds, this would either be repetition or the conjunction of a specific instance with a general category. Both interpretations depart from the apparent meaning of the wording, which may not be set aside without evidence clarifying the intended meaning. And just as