a servant who has no power over anything, and one whom We have provided with good provision from Us, so he spends from it secretly and openly. Are they equal? All praise is due to Allāh, but most of them do not know. And Allāh presents an example of two men: one of them is mute, unable to do anything, and he is a burden on his master. Wherever he directs him, he brings no good. Is he equal to one who commands justice while he is on a straight path? And He, the Exalted, said [Sūrah al-Ḥashr, 20]: "Not equal are the companions of the Fire and the companions of Paradise. The companions of Paradise are the successful ones." And similar examples where Allāh differentiates between the people of truth and falsehood, the obedient and the disobedient, the righteous and the wicked, the guided and the misguided, the truthful and the liars. So whoever witnesses the cosmic reality without [the reality of] religion equates these different categories that Allāh has distinctly separated, to the extent that this equating leads him to equate Allāh with idols, as He, the Exalted, said about them [Sūrah al-Shuʿarāʾ, 97-98]: "By Allāh, we were indeed in manifest error * when we equated you with the Lord of the worlds." Rather, the matter has reached with these people that they equated Allāh with every existent being and made what He deserves of worship and obedience a right for every existent being, as they considered Him to be the existence of the creatures. This is among the greatest disbelief and atheism and disbelief in the Lord of the servants. And these people reach a level of disbelief where they do not witness that they are servants of Allāh, neither in the sense that they are subjugated nor in the sense that they are worshippers, as they witness themselves as the truth, as their tyrants like Ibn ʿArabī explicitly stated