a distancing from the deeds of the inhabitants of Hellfire. Only a heart that has been illumined can perceive even a portion of the benefit in this, for such a heart discerns the malady afflicting those upon whom anger has fallen and those who have gone astray—a sickness whose harm is far more severe than any bodily illness.

Second: the very guidance and conduct that they follow may themselves be injurious or defective, and so the Law forbids them and commands their opposites because these opposites contain benefit and perfection. In truth, nothing of their practices is free from harm or deficiency: the innovated and abrogated deeds they perform are harmful, and whatever remains of practices whose original ruling has not been abrogated is still subject to increase and decrease. Therefore, opposing them is achieved by legislating a course that attains the act in its perfect form, for it is impossible that any aspect of their way should ever be complete. Differing from them, then, brings benefit and rectification for us in every matter—even in those worldly skills they appear to execute with precision—because that very expertise may damage one’s concern for the Hereafter, or even undermine what is more important in worldly affairs themselves. Thus, in opposing them lies our welfare.

To sum up: disbelief is comparable to—indeed, worse than—a disease of the heart. Whenever the heart is diseased, none of the limbs can be sound in any absolute sense; true well-being is found only in avoiding all resemblance to them.