Accordingly, the one in whom the faculty and readiness for conjugal relations has been placed finds his delight in exercising that faculty for that very purpose. The one endowed with the power of anger and assault delights in letting his irascible force discharge itself upon its proper object. Whoever has been given the faculty for eating and drinking finds his pleasure in using that faculty for those two acts. The one gifted with the faculty of knowledge and understanding tastes his delight in directing that power toward the pursuit of knowledge. And the one whose heart has been granted the faculty of loving Allah, turning repentantly to Him, dwelling with the heart in His presence, yearning for Him, and finding intimacy with Him—his pleasure and bliss lie in employing that faculty for precisely that. Every other pleasure, when weighed against this pleasure, is evanescent and bound to fade; at best its ultimate outcome is to be neither for the person nor against him.

Note
• O you who go unarmed! Beware the insight of the God-fearing, for he sees the nakedness of your deeds from behind the veil: “Beware the intuition of the believer” (1).
• Glory be to Allah! Within the soul are found the arrogance of Iblis, the envy of Cain, the defiance of ʿĀd, the tyranny of Thamūd, the audacity of Nimrod, the overreach of Pharaoh, the oppression of Qārūn, the brazenness of Hāmān, the caprice of Balaam, the stratagems of the Sabbath-breakers, the rebellion of al-Walīd, and the ignorance of Abū Jahl.
And within it are traits of the beasts: the acquisitiveness of the crow, the voracity of the dog, the vanity of the peacock, the baseness of the dung-beetle, the callousness of the lizard, the rancor of the camel, the spring of the leopard, the assault of the lion, the wantonness of the mouse, the malice of the serpent, the mischief of the monkey, the hoarding of the ant, the cunning of the fox, the frivolity of the butterfly, and the torpor of the hyena.