harms them nor benefits them, and they say, ‘These are our intercessors with Allah.’” And Allah Most High says:

“Those who take protectors besides Him say, ‘We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.’”

And Allah Most High says:

“We certainly destroyed the towns around you and explained Our signs in various ways so that they might return.”

“Why, then, did those whom they had taken as gods besides Allah, as a means of drawing near to Him, not help them? Rather, they were lost to them. Such was their falsehood and what they used to fabricate.”

This affirmation of Allah’s oneness means worshipping Allah alone, without any partner, and worshipping Him only in ways that He loves and approves: what He has commanded and prescribed through His messengers—may Allah’s blessings be upon them. It therefore includes obeying Him and His Messenger, showing loyalty to His allies and enmity toward His enemies, and loving Allah and His Messenger more than anyone or anything else.

It also entails loving Allah with a love in which no one else equals or rivals Him. Indeed, it requires that His Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—be dearer to a person than his own self. If the Messenger, because he is Allah’s Messenger, must be dearer to the believer than his own self, then how much more so his Lord, glorified and exalted is He?

Sahīh al-Bukhārī reports that ʿUmar said, “O Messenger of Allah, by Allah, you are dearer to me than everything except my own self.” He replied, “No, ʿUmar, not until I am