“We sent no messenger except to be obeyed by Allah’s permission. If, when they wronged themselves, they had come to you and sought Allah’s forgiveness, and the Messenger had sought forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah Accepting of repentance, Merciful.”
“But no, by your Lord, they will not believe until they make you judge concerning their disputes, then find within themselves no unease over what you have decided and submit completely.”
And His words, Most High:
“Say, ‘Obey Allah and the Messenger.’ But if they turn away, then indeed Allah does not love the disbelievers.”
He, the Most High, also said:
“Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins.’”
Thus, He made a servant’s love for his Lord require following the Messenger, and made following the Messenger a means of attaining Allah’s love for His servant.
He, the Most High, also said:
“And thus We have revealed to you a spirit by Our command. You did not know what the Scripture was or what faith was, but We have made it a light by which We guide whom We will of Our servants.”
Through what He revealed to him, Allah guides whomever He wills of His servants, just as Allah, the Most High, guided him—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—through it. As He, the Most High, said:
“Say, ‘If I go astray, I go astray only to my own detriment; but if I am guided, it is through what my Lord reveals to me.’”
He, the Most High, also said:
“There has come to you from Allah a light and a clear Book.”
“By it Allah guides those who pursue His good pleasure to the ways of peace, brings them out of darkness into the light by His permission, and guides them to a straight path.”
Through Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—the distinction became clear between disbelief and faith, gain and loss, guidance and misguidance, salvation and ruin, waywardness and right guidance, deviation and rectitude, the people of Paradise and the people of the Fire, and the God-fearing and the wicked. So too did the preference for the path of those whom Allah has blessed—the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous—over the path of those who have incurred His wrath and those who have gone astray.
People have a greater need to know and follow what he brought than they have for food and drink. For the loss of food and drink brings death in this world, whereas the loss of what he brought brings punishment. It is therefore incumbent upon everyone to devote all their effort and ability to learning what he brought and obeying him, for