Know, then, that passing thoughts and whisperings hand their concerns over to reflection; reflection passes them on to recollection; recollection conveys them to resolve; resolve then delivers them to the limbs and to outward action, where they become entrenched and turn into habit. To repel them at their very outset is therefore easier than severing them after they have grown strong and come to completion.

It is plain that man has not been given the power to kill off thoughts altogether, nor the ability to cut them off completely, for they break in upon him as inevitably as breathing itself. What he does possess is the strength of faith and reason, which helps him accept the best of those thoughts—approving them and settling with them—and drive away the worst of them, detesting and shunning them. The Companions once said, “O Messenger of Allah, one of us finds within himself something that he would rather be burned to ashes than speak of.” He asked, “Have you truly found it?” They replied, “Yes.” He said, “That is the very essence of faith.” (1) In another wording: “Praise be to Allah who has reduced the devil’s plot to mere whispering.” (2)

Scholars have explained this in two ways:

1. That one’s repelling the thought and loathing it is the essence of faith.
2. That its mere occurrence—Satan’s casting it into the heart—is itself a sign of faith, for he only throws it in seeking to oppose and eradicate that faith.

Allah, exalted is He, has fashioned the soul like a millstone that never stops turning; it must have something to grind. If grain is placed in it, it grinds grain; if dust or stones are put in, it grinds dust or stones. Thus the thoughts and promptings that roam within the soul are—