a people astray.” And He Most High says:

“If only you could see when they are made to stand before their Lord! He will say, ‘Is this not the truth?’ They will say, ‘Yes, by our Lord!’”

Whoever stops at this reality and the witnessing of it, without fulfilling the religious reality he has been commanded to uphold—namely, worshipping Allah in recognition of His divinity and obeying His command and the command of His Messenger—is of the same kind as Iblīs and the people of Hell. If, moreover, he imagines himself to be among the elect of Allah’s allies and the people of spiritual knowledge and realization, for whom the divinely prescribed commands and prohibitions no longer apply, then he is among the worst people of disbelief and deviation.

Whoever supposes that al-Khidr and others were exempted from the divine command because they witnessed the divine will, or for similar reasons, has made one of the worst statements uttered by those who disbelieve in Allah and His Messenger.

Only when he enters into the “second sense” of “servant”—a servant in the sense of a worshipper—does he become a worshipper of Allah who worships none but Him. He then obeys His command and the command of His messengers, allies himself with His believing, God-fearing allies, and opposes His enemies. This worship pertains to His divinity. Hence the defining declaration of monotheism is: “There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah.” This is unlike the state of someone who acknowledges His lordship but does not worship Him, or worships another god alongside Him.

A god is that which the heart worships with complete love, reverence, veneration, honour, fear, hope, and the like. This is the worship that Allah loves and is pleased with, by which He has described His chosen servants, and with which He sent His messengers.

As for “servant” in the sense of one subjected to servitude, whether he acknowledges this or denies it, that is a condition shared