is devoted entirely to Allah.” For He has said:

“Whoever obeys the Messenger has indeed obeyed Allah.”

To obey Him is to worship Him. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Whoever obeys me has obeyed Allah, and whoever obeys my appointed commander has obeyed me. Whoever disobeys me has disobeyed Allah, and whoever disobeys my appointed commander has disobeyed me.”

Rulers and scholars have spheres in which obedience to them is obligatory, but they too must obey Allah and the Messenger in what they command. Thus rulers and subjects, leaders and subordinates, must each obey Allah and His Messenger in their respective positions and adhere to the sharī'a Allah has prescribed for them.

This is a general principle whose detailed explanation would be lengthy. Two groups of people have erred concerning it. One group has deemed it permissible to depart from the law of Allah and His Messenger and from obedience to Allah and His Messenger, supposing that the sharī'a cannot fully secure their welfare—whether out of ignorance, ignorance combined with desire, or sheer desire. The other group has failed to appreciate the true scope of the sharī'a and has so restricted it that both they and others have come to imagine that it cannot be put into practice. At the root of this lies ignorance of what the sharī'a encompasses, its true significance, and its breadth. And Allah knows best.

Some scholars and laypeople hold that the terms sharī'a and sharʿ apply only to those actions whose study is called the science of jurisprudence. They distinguish between beliefs and revealed laws, or between spiritual realities and revealed laws. This terminology differs from the usage explained above. As for His words, “Then We set you upon