…from him, for “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam” (Qur’an 3:19), binding in every age and place. Allah has related that Noah, Abraham, Israel, and many others—down to the disciples—were Muslims, and Noah was the first messenger sent to the people of the earth, as is confirmed in the rigorously authenticated ḥadith of intercession agreed upon by al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

Whoever therefore treats the mediation affirmed by the hanīfs—whether by human beings or by angels—as equivalent to the mediation claimed by the idol-worshippers, and then sets about ranking humans against angels, has understood nothing of the religion of Islam.

Rather, the creed of the upright monotheists is exactly what Allah, exalted be He, proclaims in His Book:

“It is not for any mortal to whom Allah has given the Scripture, wisdom, and prophethood to then say to the people, ‘Be worshippers of me instead of Allah.’ Rather, [he will say], ‘Be devoted servants of the Lord because of what you have taught of the Scripture and because of what you have studied.’ Nor would he command you to take the angels and the prophets as lords. Would he order you to unbelief after you have submitted?” (Qur’an 3:79)

Accordingly, anyone who takes either angels or prophets as deities—such as those who appoint them as intermediaries in worship, supplication, and the like—is a disbeliever.

The author of al-Kutub al-Maẓnūn bihā has indeed turned angels and prophets into intermediaries and has construed their intercession in a manner that accords with the philosophers—an opinion, as noted earlier, even worse than that of the Arab pagans.

After him came the author of Kitāb al-Sirr al-Maktūm fī al-Siḥr wa-Mukhaṭabat al-Nujūm, who openly set forth polytheism: worship of the planets, jinn, and devils; invoking them; employing their incenses, talismans, and idols fashioned for them in the creed of the pagan Kaldāniyyūn and Kashdāniyyūn to whom Abraham, the Friend of Allah, was sent. On that basis he upheld the doctrine of the universe’s pre-eternity and claimed that there is no cause…