feeling for some things rather than others; and even though the person undergoing them is impaired because his power of discernment has grown weak, they never reach a point at which discrimination disappears altogether.

Whoever, in this context, denies discernment outright and exalts this state has erred with respect to both the ontological and the religious realities—he is mistaken regarding God’s creation and His command. He imagines the existence of something that in fact does not exist, and deems it praiseworthy, whereas there is nothing praiseworthy in the loss of discrimination, intellect, and knowledge.

When you hear certain shaykhs say, “I want not to want,” or, “The gnostic has no personal share,” or, “He becomes like a corpse in the hands of the washer,” and similar expressions, what they are praising is merely the falling away of a will for which one has received no command, the absence of a personal portion one has not been instructed to seek, and a corpse-like submission in pursuing what one has not been ordered to pursue and in refraining from pushing away what one has not been ordered to repel.

But if someone takes these words to mean that his will is annulled entirely, that he no longer feels pleasure or pain, benefit or harm, then this notion conflicts with the necessities of sense-perception and reason; and anyone who praises such a state stands in opposition to the necessities of religion and intellect alike.