whether obligatory or recommended, as in the authentic ḥadīth: "My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory acts until I love him. When I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears and his sight with which he sees." [end of] ḥadīth. Many of those who err and have innovated practices in asceticism and worship have fallen into some of what the Christians fell into, such as claiming love for Allāh while opposing His sharīʿah and abandoning striving in His path, and similar matters. They cling to a religion by which they seek to draw near to Allāh, similar to how the Christians cling to ambiguous speech and stories whose truthfulness is unknown, and even if true, their narrators are not infallible. They make their leaders legislators for them in religion, just as the Christians made their priests and monks legislators for them. Then they diminish servitude and claim that the elite transcend it, as the Christians claim regarding Christ and the priests. They attribute to their elite a share in divinity similar to what the Christians attribute to Christ, his mother, the priests, and the monks, along with other types that are too lengthy to explain in this context. Indeed, the true religion is the realization of servitude to Allāh in every aspect, and it is the realization of love for Allāh in every degree. To the extent that servitude is perfected, love is perfected