Rather, one in this position with respect to his property occupies the position of someone performing supererogatory worship. He is a servant by choice, not by necessity: he dismisses his king when he wishes and appoints him when he wishes. Compelled and necessitated property is not so; it lies under the king’s sovereignty.
When his command takes effect in both the outward and inward of his property, that is dominion (malakut); if its effect is confined to the outward and he has no access to the inward, that is kingship (mulk). These two attributes have appeared through the existence of the believer and the hypocrite among the messengers’ followers, God’s blessings be upon them.
Some follow him outwardly and inwardly: the Muslim believer. Some follow him outwardly but not inwardly: the hypocrite. Some follow him inwardly but not outwardly: the disobedient believer.
God gave the human being two eyes only to apprehend these two attributes through them: an eye of sense and an eye of reason, inward sight and outward sight. Since He created ‘of each kind, two mates’ [Hud 11:40; al-Mu’minun 23:27], He created two eyes to apprehend them. He ascribed eyes to Himself in the plural to indicate multiplicity. Every eye that preserves and apprehends any affair, in whatever manner, is thus the eye of the Real, to whom preservation and apprehension belong. This is
