“O people of the scripture! Come now to a word kalima agreed upon between us and you The word kalima testifies to the divine unity tawḥīd and the singularity ifrād of the Real سبحانه in bringing forth everything. that we worship none but God Do not look in your innermost self to any created thing. There should be no object of worship for you other than Him. You should have no aim maqṣūd or object of witnessing mashhūd other than Him. This is the [best] protection against associating partners [with God] shirk. You yourself are foremost among the “others” that should not be witnessed. and that we do not associate anything with Him and do not take each other for lords beside God”; The truth of this appears in abandoning praise and blame of them remov- ing any complaint or doubt about them and cleansing the innermost self from taking into account even so much as a speck of effacement maḥw or affirmation ithbāt as coming from them. [The Prophet] ﷺ said: The truest verse the Arabs sung was from Labīd: Is not everything other than God unrealḍ Every blessing is inevitably fleeting. and if they turn their backs say “Bear witness that we have submitted.”
