Excellence, or superiority, is not anyone’s racial or national prerogative. It is a gift of God to only those individuals who keep themselves righteous according to God’s guidance, who avoid all sorts of polytheism (shirk) and who throw themselves, body and soul, into the task of ‘preaching (admonition) without remuneration.’ These are the people who make the Book of God their real guide. They identify themselves with the Book to such an extent that the divine mysteries reveal themselves to them; the result of which process is known as wisdom (hikmah). These are the people whom God picks out, then commissions some of them, whom He likes, with the task of conveying His message, as prophets during the age of prophethood, and thereafter as da‘is. God’s reward either to prophets or da‘i will be entirely on the basis of righteous action (ihsan).