and that poetic odes are an innovation, which fall into two categories. The praiseworthy variety is that which recounts Allah’s favors and blessings, extols the traits of the righteous, and portrays the qualities of the God-fearing; this is permissible, although leaving it aside for the remembrance of Allah, the Qur’an, and the pursuit of knowledge is preferable. As for poetry that dwells on visible phenomena and the attributes of created beings, listening to such verses when applied to Allah is unbelief, and listening to songs and quatrains that attribute the like to Allah is likewise unbelief. Dancing to the beat of instruments and praising the dancers as though this conformed to religious law is blatant sinfulness, and—under the guise of ecstatic rapture