and he must detest committing it. Such detestation is undeniably a positive act: it is inconceivable that a believer who knows he has been forbidden from a deed should produce no affirmative response (1). True, he may have no desire for the forbidden act in the first place; rather, he may naturally loathe it (2), just as a person (3) shrinks from eating carrion or filth—even apart from the Lawgiver’s explicit ban on them (4). Still, he is obliged to believe in its prohibition and to resolve to leave it for the sake of obeying the Lawgiver. This is something over and above natural aversion, a concrete act for which he is rewarded. Yet the reward of one who restrains his soul and strives against it when it craves the forbidden act (5) is not the same as the reward of one whose very nature already dislikes it (6).

Whoever’s aversion to the prohibited springs from faith itself, so that his faith overwhelms and governs his natural disposition, belongs to the highest of the three ranks. Such a person possesses the tranquil soul, and he is higher than the owner of the reproachful soul (7)—the soul that commits a sin, then rebukes its owner for it, wavering and hesitating: should he do it or not?