and that nothing truly belongs to him. Rather, the Lord is the Creator and Doer of everything that takes place within him, and perfect witnessing of this leaves no room for self-admiration, arrogance, or anything of that kind. Both men fulfil the command and obey Allah, but this one witnesses that Allah is the One who made him a Muslim and enabled him to pray, and that he himself has not, in reality, brought anything into being. The other, although he believes and affirms this, acknowledging that Allah creates His servants’ deeds, may not witness it in a way that makes him regard himself as though he were nonexistent.

There is also a second respect in which they differ:

The first has desires and aspirations concerning certain matters, yet gives them up. He thus distinguishes among his aims between what is commanded, what is forbidden, and what is neither commanded nor forbidden. Consequently, he has no aim left at all except what the Lord wills: either something He commands, which the man carries out through Allah’s help, or something He brings about within him, which Allah effects through him. This is why he likened him to an infant with its wet nurse in matters outside the sphere of commands and prohibitions.

As for (the first), who occupies the station of general piety, he has desires for forbidden things, turns his attention toward created beings, and remains conscious of himself. He therefore needs to strive for piety by restraining himself from forbidden things and from gratifying his desires without a command. He needs to distinguish between what he should do and what he should not do: this is piety. The person of spiritual reality, however, has nothing left to do except what he is commanded. He therefore does only what he has been commanded in the revealed Law; even among permissible things, he does only what he has been commanded to do.