“‘And they devised a mighty plot.’ For calling people to Allah is a stratagem directed at those being called: He was not absent at the beginning that people should be called to Him as their ultimate goal. ‘I call to Allah’—this is the very stratagem. ‘With insight’—which entails that the entire affair belongs to Him. Thus they answered him with a stratagem, just as he called them.”

Later, he says:

“In their plotting, they said: ‘Never abandon your gods; never abandon Wadd, Suwā‘, Yaghūth, Ya‘ūq, or Nasr.’ For if they abandoned them, their ignorance of the Real would be proportionate to the number of these they abandoned. The Real has a particular aspect in every object of worship, recognized by those who know it and unknown to those who do not. Concerning the followers of Muhammad: ‘Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him’—that is, He has determined it. The knowledgeable person knows whom he has worshipped and in what form He appeared to be worshipped. He knows that distinction and multiplicity are like the limbs in a physical form and the intangible faculties in a spiritual form. Thus, in every object of worship, he has worshipped none but Allah.

“The person of lower rank is one who imagines divinity in it. Were it not for this imagining, neither stone nor anything else would be worshipped. Hence the Most High said: ‘Say: Name them.’ Had they named them, they would have called them a stone, a tree, or a star. Had they been asked, ‘Whom have you worshipped?’ they would have replied, ‘One god.’ They would not say ‘Allah’ or ‘the God’ except according to what they imagined. Rather, he said: ‘This is a locus of divine manifestation that ought to be venerated’; thus he does not confine himself.

“The person of lower rank, who relies on imagination, says: ‘We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.’ The person of higher rank, who possesses knowledge, says: ‘Your God is one God, so submit to Him’—wherever He manifests. ‘And give glad tidings to the humble’: those in whom the fire of their nature has died down, so they said ‘a god,’ not ‘nature.’”

He also says in the chapter on the Word of Aaron:

“Then Aaron said to Moses: ‘I feared that