and forbidden touching, and every other proscribed deed.
As for a man’s love for his wife or for his concubine, when that love drives him beyond fairness so that he does for her what is unlawful and neglects what is obligatory—as so often occurs—it can reach the point that he wrongs the son he has from an earlier wife because of his passion for the new one. He may then yield to the woman’s blameworthy demands in ways that damage his religion and his worldly life: favouring her with an inheritance she does not deserve; granting her relatives authority or wealth that exceeds the limits set by Allah; squandering money on her extravagantly; or enabling her to engage in activities that are forbidden and harmful to him both here and hereafter.
Such is the case when the infatuation concerns a woman whom he is actually permitted to approach. What, then, of infatuation with a woman who is unlawful to him, or with males of the human race? The corruption it breeds is beyond reckoning—known only to the Lord of all servants. It is one of those diseases that ruin a person’s religion and honour, then may ruin his mind, and finally his body.
Allah the Exalted says in Sūrat al-Aḥzāb: “Do not be soft in speech, lest he in whose heart is a sickness should covet” (33:32). The one whose heart is sick is the person dominated by lust and the longing for forms. Whenever the object of desire speaks softly, the diseased heart grows hopeful; hope strengthens the will, and the pursuit in turn inflames the sickness. The opposite is true when the suitor despairs of attaining the desired object: despair removes covetousness, the will weakens, and love itself diminishes—for no one pursues what he believes unattainable. In that state the will remains a mere inner thought, unaccompanied by action, unless words, looks, and the like are added to it.
If, however, a person is tried with ʿishq yet remains chaste and patient, he is rewarded for his mindfulness of Allah. A hadith relates: “Whoever is smitten by love, remains chaste, conceals it, is patient, and then dies, dies as a martyr.” This report is known through the chain of Yaḥyā al-Qattāt from Mujāhid from Ibn ʿAbbās, traced back to the Prophet, but it is open to criticism and cannot be used as proof. Even so, the evidence of the Law makes it clear that if someone refrains from all forbidden looks, words, and actions, keeps the matter to himself—uttering no unlawful speech, whether in complaining to people, flaunting indecency, or seeking the beloved—and bears with obedience to Allah and avoidance of sin the pain of passion in his heart, just as an afflicted person bears the pain of calamity, then such a person counts among those who fear Allah and are patient. “Indeed, whoever is mindful of Allah and patient—surely Allah never lets the reward of the doers of good go to waste” (Yūsuf 12:90).
The same applies to the malady of envy and to every other disease of the soul. When the self yearns for what Allah hates and a person restrains it out of fear of Allah, he enters under the saying of Allah in Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt: “But as for the one who feared standing before his Lord and restrained the soul from its whim, Paradise will be his refuge” (79:40–41).
For when the soul loves something, it strives to obtain it by every possible means, pursuing numerous actions that all serve that single goal. Whoever loves with a blameworthy love, or hates with a blameworthy hatred, and then acts upon it is sinful—for example, hating someone out of envy and thereby harming those connected to him, either by withholding their rights or by aggression against them; or loving someone for the sake of his own desire for that person and on that account committing what is forbidden or