…He will honour them and admit them to Paradise. The benefit of worship thus redounds to them alone, and the harm of sin comes back upon them alone. As for Allah, exalted is He, neither the obedience of the obedient nor the disobedience of the sinful harms Him in the least. He says: “If you and everyone on earth should disbelieve, Allah is still self-sufficient, ever-praiseworthy” (Q 14:8). The sinner’s rebellion does not injure Allah, nor does the devotee’s obedience profit Him; all of this concerns the creatures themselves: when they obey Him they gain, and when they disobey they suffer by that disobedience. [16] His statement “and the meaning of yaʿbudun is yuwahhidun” means: “that they single Me out in worship.” Worship and tawhid (affirming divine oneness) are identical: tawhid is explained as worship, and worship is explained as tawhid, their meaning being one. This refutes those who define tawhid merely as acknowledging that Allah is the Creator, Provider, Giver of life and death, and Disposer of affairs; that is not the tawhid for which creation was brought into existence. Rather, they were created for the tawhid of worship, tawhid al-uluhiyya (affirming Allah’s sole right to be worshipped). Whoever affirms only tawhid al-rububiyya (divine lordship) is not a monotheist, is not among the people of Paradise, but is instead among the people of the Fire, for he has not realised the tawhid and worship for which he was created.