follow what He loved. Rather, they followed what angered Allah and disliked His pleasure, so He rendered their deeds worthless. Allah hates the disbelievers, detests them, and curses them. He, glorified is He, loves those who love Him. A servant cannot love Allah without Allah Most High loving him. Rather, Allah’s love for His servant corresponds to the servant’s love for his Lord, although Allah’s reward for His servant is greater.

As Allah Most High says in the authentic divine hadith:

“Whoever draws near to Me a handspan, I draw near to him an arm’s length. Whoever draws near to Me an arm’s length, I draw near to him an armspan. Whoever comes to Me walking, I come to him running.”

He, glorified is He, has declared that He loves the God-fearing, those who do good, the patient, those who repeatedly repent, and those who purify themselves. Indeed, He loves whoever fulfils His commands, whether obligatory or recommended, as stated in the authentic hadith:

“My servant continues to draw near to Me through voluntary acts of worship until I love him. When I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears and his sight with which he sees”—to the end of the hadith.

Many of those who have erred by following spiritual teachers in “asceticism and worship” have fallen into some of the same errors as the Christians: claiming to love Allah while violating His law, neglecting to strive in His cause, and the like. In the religion through which they seek to draw near to Allah, they cling to things similar to those to which the Christians clung: ambiguous statements and accounts whose tellers’ truthfulness is unknown. Even if a teller were truthful, he would not be infallible. Thus they make those whom they follow into lawgivers who prescribe a religion for them, just as the Christians made their priests and monks lawgivers