This is a noble principle: whoever gives it due attention will understand (1) the source of the misguidance and waywardness found among many people (2).

For this reason, you will find that the shaykhs and righteous people (3) who adhere to the divine commands and prohibitions frequently counsel their followers to adhere to knowledge and the Sacred Law. This is because inclinations toward certain things, and a love for them, often (4) arise within them. They then follow their own desires in such matters, supposing them to be part of Allah’s religion (5), though they have nothing to rely upon but conjecture, subjective taste, and ecstatic feeling (6)—the latter ultimately stemming from what the self loves and desires. Thus, at times they invoke divine decree (7), and at other times conjecture and speculation, whereas in reality they are following their own desires.

When they instead follow knowledge—that is, what the Lawgiver, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, brought—they leave behind conjecture and what souls desire, and follow what has come to them from their Lord, namely guidance.

As Allah Most High says:

“Then, when guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance will neither go astray nor fall into misery.”

[Surah Tā Hā: 123]

Allah Most High has mentioned this same meaning concerning the polytheists in Surahs al-Anʿām, al-Nahl, and al-Zukhruf. He Most High says:

“They say, ‘Had the Most Merciful willed, we would never have worshiped them.’ They have no knowledge of that; they are merely speculating.”

[Surah al-Zukhruf: 20]

He thus made clear (8) that they had no knowledge of this and were merely speculating.