those that set.” Allah Most High also says:

“On the Day when neither wealth nor children will be of any benefit, except to one who comes to Allah with a sound heart.”

That is, a heart free from associating partners with Allah.

As for their statement, “There is no affinity between the created being and the Eternal One that would require the former to love Him and delight in beholding Him,” this statement is ambiguous. If by affinity they mean that there is no relationship of procreation between them, this is true. If they mean that there is no affinity between them like that between sexual partners, or between one who eats and what is eaten, or anything similar, this too is true. But if they mean that there is no affinity between them whereby one should be a loving worshipper and the other worshipped and loved, then this is precisely the point at issue. To invoke it as evidence is to beg the question, and rejecting the premise is sufficient.

It may then be said: on the contrary, no affinity calls for perfect love except that between the creature and the Creator, besides whom there is no god. He is God in heaven and God on earth, and to Him belong the highest attributes in the heavens and the earth. What these people say amounts, in reality, to denying that Allah is truly worshipped.

For this reason, certain groups of Sufis versed in speculative theology, who deny that Allah truly loves, have agreed on this point: they acknowledge that He is loved but deny that He loves. They adopted Sufism while retaining the doctrines of those speculative theologians, and thus took from the Sufis their teaching on love, although their treatment of it may involve confusion. The denial of love originated with the doctrine of the Mu‘tazilah and similar Jahmī groups. As for the Lord’s love for His servant, they deny it even more vehemently.

Those who deny it fall into two groups: