of mercy, for ablasa means to despair of mercy, and a mublis is one who has given up hope. Iblis—may Allah curse him—is therefore the chief of all ṭāghūts: he is the one who commands the worship of anything besides Allah, who urges people to follow anyone other than the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and who orders obedience to other than Allah in declaring things lawful and unlawful. In short, Iblis is the fountainhead of evil and the leader of the ṭāghūts.

The second category is the one who is worshipped while being pleased with that worship. That is, a person who knowingly accepts that people worship him is a ṭāghūt. By contrast, someone who is worshipped against his will is not included here; Jesus—peace be upon him—was worshipped besides Allah, yet he never approved of it, and the same holds true for his mother, ʿUzayr (Ezra), and the righteous friends and saints of Allah. They all repudiated such worship and fought those who practised it. Hence, whoever is worshipped without consenting to it is not called a ṭāghūt.

For this reason, when Allah revealed: “Indeed, you and what you worship other than Allah are the fuel of Hell; you will surely enter it” (al-Anbiyāʾ 98), the idolaters rejoiced and said, “We worship the Messiah and others—so they will be with us in the Fire.” Allah then revealed: “Indeed, those for whom the best reward has already gone forth from Us—they will be kept far away from it. They will not even hear its faintest sound, and they will abide forever in whatever their souls desire” (al-Anbiyāʾ 101–102).