the Jews and Christians. Whoever does not regard such people as disbelievers is himself a greater disbeliever than the Jews and Christians, for the Jews and Christians regard idol worshippers as disbelievers. What, then, of someone who holds that whoever abandons idol worship becomes ignorant of the Real in proportion to how much of it he abandons?

Moreover, he says:

“For the knowledgeable person knows whom he has worshipped, and in what form He appeared to receive that worship. He knows that differentiation and multiplicity are like the limbs of a perceptible form and the immaterial faculties of a spiritual form. Thus, whatever the object of worship, he has worshipped none but Allah.”

Indeed, this is worse unbelief than that of idol worshippers, for they took their idols as intercessors and intermediaries, as they said:

“We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.”

And Allah Most High says:

“Or have they taken intercessors besides Allah? Say, ‘Even though they possess nothing and have no understanding?’”

They acknowledged that Allah was the Creator of the heavens and the earth and the Creator of the idols, as Allah Most High says:

“If you ask them who created the heavens and the earth, they will surely say, ‘Allah.’”

And Allah Most High says:

“Most of them do not believe in Allah without also associating others with Him.”

Ibn ‘Abbās said: “You ask them who created the heavens and the earth, and they say, ‘Allah,’ yet they worship others besides Him.” In their pilgrimage invocation, they would say: “Here I am at Your service! You have no partner except a partner who belongs to You: You own him and all that he owns.”

For this reason, Allah Most High says:

“He sets forth for you an example drawn from yourselves: do you have, among those whom your right hands possess, any partners in what We have provided for you, so that you are equal in it and fear them as you fear one another?”

These people are greater in unbelief because they regard the idol worshipper as worshipping Allah, not anyone besides Him, and regard the idols as part of Allah, just as a person’s limbs are part of that person