as when someone asks, ‘Who is your Lord?’ Similarly, ‘the poor’ and ‘the needy’ denote two categories in His words: ‘Alms are only for the poor and the needy’1, but a single category in the saying: ‘He has made alms obligatory upon them, to be taken from their rich and given to their poor.’

If this is established, then the two angels’ question to a man in his grave, ‘Who is your Lord?’ means ‘Who is your Deity?’ For no one is tested concerning the lordship that the polytheists acknowledged. The same applies to His words: ‘Those who have been driven from their homes without right—only because they say, “Our Lord is Allah”’2; His words: ‘Say: Shall I seek a lord other than Allah?’3; and His words: ‘Indeed, those who have said, “Our Lord is Allah,” and then remained steadfast’4. Here, lordship means divinity; it is not a separate category alongside it, as it is when the two are mentioned together. This point therefore deserves careful attention”5.

Then, on p. 31, following his earlier remarks, the writer said: “In short, the Noble Quran and the widely transmitted Sunnah have indicated that affirming Allah’s oneness in lordship and affirming His oneness in worship necessarily entail one another. This is something the Lord of the worlds has established. Because of this necessary connection, He, glorified be He, has accepted either one from His servants as sufficient in place of the other. The angels brought near to Him likewise deemed it sufficient when questioning. People understood this necessary connection intuitively—even the unbelieving pharaohs. None of the early generations, the Companions, or the Successors asserted a distinction, or said that affirming Allah’s oneness in worship differs from affirming His oneness in lordship. Nor has this distinction been transmitted from any of them, let alone from the Book