This knowledge and practice are innate and unavoidable. Souls know their need for their Creator and humble themselves before the One they need. His self-sufficiency is part of His unique quality of being al-Samad, the One upon whom all depend, for:

“Everyone in the heavens and the earth asks of Him.”

This is recognition of His lordship through seeking His help, relying upon Him, supplicating to Him, and asking of Him. Yet this alone does not suffice souls until they know what knowledge and deeds will set them right: worshipping Him and turning to Him in devotion. The servant was created only to worship his Lord. His well-being, perfection, delight, joy, and happiness lie in worshipping his Lord and turning to Him. This goes beyond merely asking of Him and needing Him.

All created things come into being by His will, subsist through His power and His word, need Him, depend upon Him, and submit to Him willingly or unwillingly. When the servant recognizes this, surrenders to Him, and humbles himself before Him, he has believed in His lordship and perceived his own need and dependence upon Him. He then asks of Him, relies upon Him, and seeks His help, whether through his condition or his words, unlike one who arrogantly turns away from Him and refuses to ask of Him.

Now, whoever seeks His help and asks of Him may ask for something he is commanded to seek, something he is forbidden to seek, or something permissible for him. The “first” is the state of the blessed believers, whose condition is expressed in:

“You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.”

The “second” is the state of the disbelievers, the defiantly disobedient, and the sinners who have some belief in Him, even though they are disbelievers, as He says:

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

They believe in His lordship but associate partners with Him in worship, as in the following: “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to Husayn al-Khuzāʿī: