is tantamount to outright denial, and he too is a disbeliever—may Allah protect us.

If you believe in Allah in the correct manner, you will inevitably obey Him: carrying out His commands and avoiding His prohibitions. Whoever truly believes in Allah must, without exception, feel absolute veneration for Him and absolute love for Him. When a person loves Allah with a love that exceeds every other love, and reveres Him with a reverence to which no other reverence compares, he will fulfil Allah’s orders and abstain from what Allah has forbidden.

Part of believing in Allah is also to affirm that Allah is above everything, risen over His Throne; and the Throne is above all created things. It is the greatest created entity we know of, for it is related in a report: “The seven heavens and the seven earths, in comparison to the kursi (Footstool), are like a ring tossed onto a vast plain.” The expansive seven heavens and the seven earths, compared with the Footstool, are like that ring in relation to the open land. Throw a ring from a coat of mail into a desert plain and consider the proportion of that ring to the plain—nothing at all!

The narration continues: “And the superiority of the Throne over the Footstool is like the superiority of that plain over the ring.” Thus, the Footstool in relation to the Throne is like a ring cast into a desert plain. So reflect