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political islam 473relationship between God and the believers. Whereas the relationshipbetween God and His creation can be denied only by those whocompletely deny the existence of God, the relationship between Godand the believers operates on a completely different level (of religiouscommitment). The confusion between the two is apparent in thewidespread custom among Muslim-Believers to connect their sons’names with one of the ninety-nine beautiful attributes of God, suchas #Abd al-D§"im (slave of the Everlasting) or #Abd al-Maujåd (slaveof the Existing) and assume thereby a special relationship betweentheir sons as ‘slaves’ to a personified God, ‘their’ God. They ignorethat the Book provides these attributes for the description of the entireuniverse in which all creation, believers and non-believers, live. Onlywhen Allah is called by the names of al-walÊ or al-maul§ is it doneexclusively for the benefit of those who believe in Him (and not forall His creation). This is clearly expressed in the following verse:God is the protector [walÊ] of those who have faith: from the depthsof darkness He will lead them forth into light. Of those who reject faiththe patrons are the evil ones: from light they will lead them forth intothe depths of darkness… ( Al-Baqara 2:257)In contrast, God in His capacity as Creator, is the walÊ for all humankind,whether they believe in Him or not. This is different fromal-wal§" that requires a conscious act of allegiance which only rationaland sane people can perform, in contrast to the animals and theinsane who just follow by instinct or habit.As verse 49:13 makes clear, humankind is organised in many differentways: by their sex or social class and/or by their communal,tribal, and national affiliations. If a community (umma) is characterisedby the relatively homogenous behaviour of its members, a tribe,or a nation, and so on, are obviously characterised by other criteria.We will have to establish these criteria in order to be able to discussthe different features of al-wal§" with regard to each type of thesesocial categories.Looking at the general evolution of humankind we observe thateven before al-wal§" became articulated in social relationships, itsdual composition of either affirmation or negation was always partof the natural set-up of living beings. Even before God breathed Hisspirit into His creation, through which animals turned into humanbeings capable of rational thought and social interaction, a socialinstinct had always been (naturally) instilled in them. When humans