He is like a person whose soul has been kept safe from craving sensual pleasures: they never cross his mind, nor does his lower self call him to them. The first group, by contrast, do recognize those desires, their souls lean toward them, and they must fight against themselves to abandon them for Allah’s sake.
People once wrote to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb to ask about this issue: Which is better—a man to whom lustful desires never occur at all, or a man whose soul urges him toward them yet he forsakes them for Allah? ʿUmar wrote back, “The one whose soul longs for sins but leaves them for Allah is among ﴿those whose hearts Allah has tested for mindfulness of Him; for them is forgiveness and a tremendous reward﴾ (3) [Q 49:3].” (1)
Likewise, the person who knows the various forms of innovation, idolatry, and falsehood, detests them for Allah’s sake, remains on guard against them, warns others about them, and repels them from himself—never allowing them to scratch the surface of his faith or sow the least doubt—actually grows in insight into the truth, in love for it, and in loathing for falsehood each time he encounters them. Such a person is superior to one in whose heart those errors never even arise. Whenever they do cross his mind and he pictures them, his love of the truth increases, his appreciation of its worth deepens, and he rejoices in it; thus his faith becomes stronger. In the same way, whenever thoughts of lusts and sins visit a person and he turns away from them to their opposite, his love for that opposite, his desire for it, and his zeal to attain it all intensify.
Accordingly, Allah—exalted is He—never tests His believing servant by letting his soul incline toward base desires and sins except to lead him thereby to love something better, more beneficial, nobler, and more enduring, and to make him strive against his soul by abandoning them for His sake. That struggle then brings him to the highest Beloved. So every time his soul pulls him toward those desires and his yearning for them grows strong, he redirects that very yearning, will, and love toward the higher and everlasting kind, and his pursuit of it becomes even more intense,