and mercy involved, as explained at length elsewhere. The point here is that the negation of harm and benefit from anything besides Him is general. The one negation need not be restricted to those who worship it and the other to those who do not, although this restriction is valid when understood in a sound sense. The explanation that abandoning its worship brings no harm, while the harm resulting from worshipping it is closer than its benefit, rests upon this restriction.

That being so, we say: what is negated is the power of anything besides Him to harm or benefit.

As for His words:

“Its harm is closer than its benefit,”

we say, first: what is negated is their performing the action, in His words:

“That which neither harms him nor benefits him.”

What is affirmed, however, is a noun linked to it in a genitive construction. He did not say, “It harms more than it benefits.” Rather, He said:

“One whose harm is closer than its benefit.”

One thing may be attributed to another through the slightest association. Thus, attributing harm and benefit in this way does not necessarily mean attributing a verbal noun to its agent. Rather, a verbal noun may enter such a construction simply as a noun, like other nouns. It may also be attributed to the entity in which the action occurs, its time, its place, or the cause of its occurrence, even if that cause is not its agent, as in His words:

“Rather, it was the plotting of night and day.”

There is undoubtedly a connection between what is worshipped besides Allah and the harm suffered by its worshippers that warrants such an attribution. It is as though it were said: “One whose evil is closer than its good, and whose loss is closer than its profit.” Reflect on this.

Even if it were regarded as the agent of harm on this basis, because it is a cause of it, not because it is itself the one that