and the absence of either of them necessarily brings about pain and torment. Just as sound perception together with sound natural and volitional movement yields pleasure and favor, so the corruption of any of them yields pain and affliction. For this reason the word niʿmah (blessing) is derived from naʿīm (delight): it is what Allah bestows upon His servants in the form of pleasure and bliss. Concerning this He says in al-Takāthur, “Then you will surely be questioned that Day about the bliss” (102:8), that is, about your gratitude for it.

The root of pleasure is sensing what accords with one’s nature, while the root of pain is sensing what conflicts with it. Pleasure and pain are not identical with the act of perception itself; rather, they are its outcome, its fruit, the purpose and goal for which perception exists. Illness therefore entails inevitable pain, even though at times the pain may subside because a stronger counter-factor is present; yet the underlying cause remains and will flare up at the slightest trigger. Thus every illness must contain a cause of pain, and that pain is removed only by the presence of a stronger opposing force.

The heart’s pleasure and pain—by which I mean its psychological pleasure and pain—are far greater than the pleasure and pain of the body. True, the heart may also experience a bodily-type pain caused by physical illness, but that is something different. For this reason the disease of the heart and its cure are more critical than the disease of the body and its cure.

Sometimes the heart’s disease stems from doubts, as in His words in al-Aḥzāb: “so let the one whose heart is diseased yearn [for you]” (33:32). Al-Kharāʾiṭī even composed a book entitled The Ailments of Hearts Caused by Desires. In the hearts of the hypocrites there is this very disease, arising from the corruption of their beliefs and intentions. Likewise, the person who has been wronged carries within his heart a disease—the pain produced by another’s injustice. When he recovers his right, his heart is healed, just as Allah, Exalted is He, says in al-Tawbah: “He will heal the breasts of a believing people and remove the rage from their hearts” (9:14–15). The subsiding of the heart’s rage occurs only when harm and pain have been driven away; once the harm is removed and the right restored, the rage disappears.

In the same way, if a person loses his hearing or sight, that loss is a painful ailment because of the benefits he misses and the harms that befall him. So too, if his heart neither hears nor sees nor knows truth from falsehood, and if he cannot distinguish good from evil, error from guidance, this is one of the gravest diseases of the heart and one of its most agonizing pains.

Again, when someone craves what harms him—such as an excessive passion for food in general, or the urge to eat clay and the like—that is an illness. He suffers until the pain is dulled by the very act of eating, which then brings a pain greater than the first: he suffers if he eats and he suffers if he refrains from eating.