So that Allah, His Messenger, the Abode of the Hereafter, and Paradise with all its bliss become dearer to him than these cravings (1), and he realizes that he cannot (2) unite the two. Consequently, he gives precedence to the higher of the two beloved things over the lower. Or he may acquire knowledge of the fears and pains that follow preferring those cravings—pains whose severity surpasses, and whose duration outlasts, the pain of forfeiting them. When these two kinds of knowledge take firm root in his heart, they produce in him the preference for what ought to be preferred and the resolve to set it above everything else (3). Indeed, the very essence (4) of intellect is to favor the higher of two desirable things over the lower (5) and to endure the lesser of two disliked matters so as to escape the greater (6).
By this principle you can gauge people’s minds, distinguish the intelligent from others (7), and observe the varying degrees of their understanding (8). So where (9) is the intellect of one who prefers a fleeting pleasure
(1) The passage from “thus Allah” to “desires” is omitted from manuscript C.
(2) The base text reads “cannot”; the adopted reading follows manuscripts B and C.
(3) The passage from “and he knows that” to “everything besides it” appears in manuscript C in what resembles an explanatory paraphrase. Its wording is: “Once it becomes firmly established in his heart that he can combine this desire with the delight of the Hereafter, and he knows what follows from the two of them in the Hereafter, which is more severe than the pain of patiently abstaining from these desires, these two forms of knowledge produce preferring what he ought to prefer.”
(4) Manuscripts B and C read “especially.”
(5) “Upon the lesser of the two” is omitted from manuscript C.
(6) Ibn al-Qayyim added this statement by way of clarification in al-Da wa-al-Dawa (The Disease and the Cure), p. 310.
(7) Manuscript C reads, “and the rational person is distinguished from others.”
(8) “Their differing degrees of intellect become apparent” is omitted from manuscript C.
(9) Manuscript B adds “from.”