This is why “faith” consists of speech and action in conformity with the Sunnah. Knowledge of the truth is that which accords with Allah’s knowledge, and righteous will is that which accords with Allah’s love and good pleasure—that is, His prescriptive judgment. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise. Matters conveyed in reports must accord with Allah’s knowledge and what He has reported, while matters of practice must accord with what Allah loves and commands. The latter concerns His judgment, and the former His knowledge.

As for someone who reduces His judgment to predestination alone, as the author of “Manāzil al-Sā’irīn” (The Stations of the Wayfarers) did, and holds that the gnostic’s witnessing of this judgment prevents him from regarding a good deed as good or an evil deed as evil—this involves grave error, as we have pointed out elsewhere.

Thus, it does not benefit the aspiring seeker to worship just any object of worship, nor to worship Allah through just any form of worship. Rather, this is the way of those who associate partners with Allah and introduce religious innovations: they have partners who have prescribed for them a religion that Allah has not authorized. Such are the Christians and those religious innovators who resemble them, who worship other than Allah without His command. By contrast, the followers of Islam and the Sunnah worship Allah alone and worship Him as He has prescribed. They do not worship Him through innovations, except when one of them does so in error.

Those who follow the path of aspiration may err at times concerning what they seek, and at other times concerning the path to it. At times, they deify other than Allah by fearing them, placing hope in them, venerating and loving them, petitioning them, and directing their longing towards them. This is the very essence of associating partners with Allah, which is forbidden. For the essence of