117 – ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn narrated to me, from one of his teachers, that Thābit al-Bunānī was asked about istidrāj (gradual enticement). He answered, “That is Allah’s stratagem against servants who squander their duties.” The narrator said: Yūnus remarked, “When a servant holds a rank with Allah, guards it, remains constant upon it, and then thanks Allah for what He has granted, Allah will bestow upon him something even nobler. But if he neglects gratitude, Allah draws him on through istidrāj, and his very neglect of gratitude is itself a form of istidrāj.”