and converse with him directly, with no intermediary or screen—would that not be the ruler’s most complete and commendable state, or is he more exalted when no one can reach him except through a chain of go-betweens, long or short?

People! In your gatherings you boast about ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him); you praise him, exalt him, and tell everyone that he was humble, never arrogant or high-handed, that he kept himself close to the people so that even the weakest among them could meet and speak with him. You relate how a rough, uninformed Bedouin could come straight to him, address him without intermediary or barrier, and ʿUmar would look into his need and fulfil it if it was just. Tell me, then: is this type of ruler better and nobler, or the sort to which you liken your Lord when you draw your comparisons?

What is the matter with you—how do you judge? Where have your minds gone, your thinking disappeared? How could you bring yourselves to liken Allah, exalted is He, to a tyrannical king? How did Satan manage to veil from you the hideousness of comparing the Sublime God to an oppressive despot?

O people, were you to liken Allah to the most just, the most devout, the most righteous of human beings, you would still have lapsed into disbelief. How much worse, then, that you have likened Him to the most unjust, the most immoral, the vilest of humankind!

O people, had you measured your Majestic Lord against the God-fearing, just ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, you would already have fallen into association (shirk). Yet Satan was not content with that: he dragged you lower still, until you measured your Lord against the tyrannical and corrupt among kings, princes, and ministers.

Indeed, to compare Allah to His creation is outright disbelief, against which He has warned when He said: