the very essence of the One described; they collapse one attribute into another, claiming that knowledge itself is identical with pleasure, that it is identical with the knower, who is the one experiencing that pleasure. Sound reason plainly attests to the falsity of such a notion.

Those who followed the philosophers’ tack among certain Sufis and scholastic theologians, affirming the delight of knowing God and the delight of gazing upon Him in the Hereafter, went on to equate that delight with the mere cognition of His existence—or something of that sort. This is the view expressed by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and those who walked in his footsteps. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī and other philosophers adopted the same approach: they acknowledged the Messenger’s report about beholding Allah in the Hereafter but interpreted that vision in line with their defective principles.

Even these thinkers, who mixed philosophy with kalām and are therefore nearer to the truth—both rationally and scripturally—than the pure philosophers, still failed to affirm for Allah all the names and attributes He deserves, as stated explicitly in the Book and the Sunnah. Nor did they affirm everything brought by the messengers concerning His love, His worship, and the delight of gazing upon Him, in the way it was affirmed by the early generations of the Ummah, its leading imāms, and the People of Sunnah and Ḥadīth.

As recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from Ṣuhayb (may Allah be pleased with him), the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said:

"When the inhabitants of Paradise have entered their dwellings, a herald will call out, ‘O people of Paradise! You have an appointment with Allah which He wishes to fulfill for you.’ They will say, ‘What is it? Has He not already brightened…"