These people worship Allah on the brink: if good befalls them, they are content with it; but if a trial befalls them, they turn on their heels, losing both this world and the Hereafter. Most of them carry this so far that they regard fighting the unbelievers as fighting Allah. They identify the very beings of unbelievers, evildoers, and idols with Allah’s own being and essence. They say, “Nothing exists other than Him,” meaning that the creature is the Creator and the thing made is its Maker. They may also say:

“If Allah had willed, neither we nor our forefathers would have associated partners with Him, nor would we have forbidden anything.”

And they say:

“Should we feed someone whom Allah could have fed, had He willed?”

They make other such statements and commit similar deeds, worse than the doctrines of the Jews and Christians—indeed, worse than those of the polytheists, the Magians, and all other unbelievers. These resemble the claims of Pharaoh, the Dajjāl, and others like them who deny the Maker, the Creator, the Originator, the Lord of all worlds, or claim that they themselves are He, or that He has indwelt them.

These people disbelieve in the two foundations of Islam: the testimony that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

The obligatory affirmation of Allah’s oneness is that we worship Allah alone, associate nothing with Him, and set up no rival to Him in His divinity, whether as a partner or an intercessor. As for “the affirmation of Allah’s sole lordship,” meaning the acknowledgment that He is the Creator of everything, this was acknowledged even by the polytheists of whom Allah said:

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

Ibn ‘Abbās said: You ask them, “Who created the heavens and the earth?” They reply: