of Allah’s servants. His heart is filled with love for Allah and with sincere goodwill toward His creatures. He fulfills the obligatory duties and the recommended acts, avoids the forbidden and the disliked, and even shuns those permissible excesses that would lessen his rank. Such people are the elect of the elect, those brought near to Allah in the gardens of bliss, the inhabitants of the highest level of Firdaus.
For just as Allah is All-Merciful, whose mercy is vast, He is also All-Wise, assigning everything its proper place and granting every person according to his state and station. Because they were the first to hasten to every good deed in this world, they will occupy the loftiest stations in the Hereafter; and because they selected the best of works, Allah will bestow upon them the best of rewards. Hence the spring of tasnīm is the most exalted drink of the people of Paradise: those who are brought near will drink from it pure, while it will be blended for the Companions of the Right into the other drinks of Paradise—drinks that suffer no deficiency whatsoever. Allah says, “And its blend will be of tasnīm, a spring from which those brought near will drink” (Al-Mutaffifīn 83:27-28).
The same applies to all other kinds and varieties of Paradise’s delights: for these forerunners they reach the highest, most perfect, and most precious degree. Yet nothing in Paradise is base, deficient, or marred in the slightest; whoever enjoys any of its pleasures will feel in his heart that nothing could surpass it, for Allah will have granted them complete contentment.
The very best of these forerunners are the prophets, each in his own rank; then come the ṣiddīqūn (the most veracious), likewise in their respective ranks. For all of them, “they have degrees according to what they did.” Exalted is He who has set such tremendous distinctions among His servants. Allah chooses for His mercy whom He wills, and Allah is the Lord of tremendous bounty.
Benefit: In the Qur’an the term ẓulm (wrongdoing) is used with several meanings:
• Disbelief and major polytheism, as in His words, “The disbelievers—they are the wrongdoers” (Al-Baqarah 2:254) and “Indeed, associating partners with Allah is a great injustice” (Luqmān 31:13), and similar verses.