all of this is beyond the believer’s share as such. The rank of faith, which is assent that this person is a messenger from God, comes only after the attainment of the knowledge we have mentioned.
When the signs establish that he speaks truly in claiming to be God’s messenger, apart from the oneness of the One who sent him, those endowed with understanding, judgment, and reason prepare themselves for what this messenger will bring in his message. The first thing he says in his message is, “God, who sent me, tells you to say, ‘There is no god but God.’”
(The Command to Utter the Declaration of Oneness)
Those endowed with understanding thus know that a person who knows God’s oneness is under no obligation by virtue of that knowledge to utter it. When this knower, who affirms God’s oneness, hears the messenger’s command to utter it and sees that it is beyond what the proof of God’s oneness entails, he utters it out of faith and assent to this messenger.
When the knower says, “There is no god but God,” in response to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, telling him by God’s command, “Say, ‘There is no god but God,’” he is called a believer. The Messenger made it obligatory for him to say it. He had already known it inwardly and had been free in himself to utter it or refrain from uttering it. This is the rank of the person who knows the oneness of God by proof.
Whoever dies knowing that there is no god but God enters the Garden, beyond doubt or uncertainty, and is among the felicitous. In the intervals between messengers, God will raise such a person as a community in himself, like Quss ibn Sāʿidah, with no one whom he follows,
Notes
Translator’s note TN1317-1: Fatarāt are intervals without an operative summons from a messenger. Here the author uses Quss ibn Sāʿidah as his example of a person who knew divine oneness in such an interval and is described as a community in himself.
