to drive him out, and you will face one of three outcomes: either he overpowers you and takes command of the fortress, or he lives alongside you inside it, or he keeps you so busy confronting him that you never attain your full benefit, forcing you to return to plugging the breach and mending the tattered walls. Once his tunnel opens into your stronghold, three calamities befall you: he undermines the very fabric of the fortress, he raids its stores and treasures, and he shows thieves of his own kind where its naked flaws lie. He will continue to launch raid after raid until they sap your strength and weaken your resolve, so that you abandon the fortress and leave it at their mercy.

Such is the condition of most souls when faced with this enemy. You see them courting their Lord’s displeasure to gratify themselves—indeed, to gratify another creature like themselves who can neither harm nor benefit them. They forfeit the gains of religion in pursuit of worldly wealth; they destroy their own lives for what will not endure; they cling to a world that has already turned its back on them and spurn the Hereafter that is racing toward them. They defy their Lord by following their passions, rely on life yet never remember death, recall their appetites and shares while forgetting the covenant Allah took from them. They worry about what Allah has already guaranteed them and neglect what He has commanded, rejoice in the world and grieve at losing their portion of it, yet feel no sorrow over missing Paradise and its delights. They do not rejoice in faith as they do over a dirham or a dinar. They spoil their truth with falsehood, their guidance with misguidance, their good with evil; they cloak their faith in conjecture, mix what is lawful with what is forbidden, wander bewildered amid the confusion of their own opinions and thoughts, and forsake the guidance Allah has bestowed upon them.

Most astonishing of all is that this very enemy even employs the owner of the fortress to demolish it with his own two hands!