Thus, the polytheists’ acknowledgment that Allah is the Creator, Provider, and Disposer of all affairs is part of the faith prescribed by divine law. Yet it does not benefit them unless they also fulfil its necessary implication: worshipping Allah alone. Hence, the Quran and Sunnah describe them as disbelievers and polytheists. The Quran describes them as disbelievers not because they acknowledge Allah’s Lordship, as the writer understood, but because they associate others with Allah in worship and fail to devote their religion exclusively to Him.

“Nevertheless, their association of partners with Allah in worship necessarily entails associating partners with Him in Lordship, as well as in His Names and Attributes. For the various aspects of affirming Allah’s oneness are inseparably linked; none can be separated from another. The same applies to their opposites: whoever contradicts one aspect of Allah’s oneness through any form of polytheism has thereby associated partners with Him in the remaining aspects. An example in our time is those who worship graves. If one of them says to the person buried there, ‘O Shaykh so-and-so, come to my aid,’ or ‘Do such-and-such for me,’ or similar words, he is calling upon him from far away, even though that person lies beneath the earth and has turned to dust.

“His supplication to that person is an act of worship that he has directed to someone other than Allah, for supplication is the very essence of worship. This is associating partners with Allah in worship. Asking that person to fulfil such a need—whether to bring about some good, avert some harm, bring back someone absent, heal someone sick, or do anything similar that none but Allah can do—while believing him capable of doing so is associating partners with Allah in Lordship, since he believes that this person exercises control alongside Allah Most High in His dominion. Moreover, he does not invoke him in this way without believing that he hears him from near or far, at any time and in any place; indeed, they state this explicitly. This is associating partners with Allah in His Names and Attributes, since he attributes to that person hearing that encompasses all sounds, unhindered by nearness or distance. Thus, this association of partners with Allah in worship necessarily entails associating partners with Him in Lordship and in His Names and Attributes.”1.

Furthermore, the writer—indeed, speculative theologians in general—pay no attention whatsoever to affirming Allah’s oneness in worship, which the polytheists denied. If they do discuss it, they speak ignorantly and include within it what contradicts and opposes it.