Thus Allah, glory be to Him, likens someone to whom He gave His Book and taught knowledge He withheld from others, but who abandoned acting upon it, followed his desires, and preferred Allah’s displeasure to His pleasure, his worldly life to his Hereafter, and the creature to the Creator, to a dog—one of the lowliest animals, lowest in standing and basest in nature. Its concerns extend no further than its belly, and it is among the greediest and most covetous of animals. Such is its greed that it never walks without its muzzle to the ground, sniffing and seeking out scents out of greed and voracity. It continually sniffs its rear rather than any other part of its body. If you throw a stone at it, it turns back to bite it out of sheer voracity. It is among the most abject animals, the most accepting of humiliation, and the most content with vile things. Filthy, foul-smelling carrion is dearer to it than meat, and excrement dearer than sweets. If it finds a carcass sufficient for a hundred dogs, it will let no other dog eat any of it alongside it without snarling at it and driving it away, out of greed, miserliness, and voracity.

Among the remarkable manifestations of its greed is that, when it sees someone shabby in appearance, wearing poor clothes and in a wretched condition, it barks at him and attacks him, as though imagining that he will share its food and compete with it for sustenance. But when it sees someone of fine appearance, beautiful clothing, and high standing, it lowers its muzzle to the ground before him, submits to him, and does not raise its head toward him.

There is a remarkable subtlety in likening someone who, despite his abundant knowledge, prefers this world and its immediate pleasures to Allah and the Hereafter, to a panting dog. The person whose condition Allah describes—casting off His signs and following his own desires—has reached this state only because of his intense craving for this world, his heart having become disconnected from Allah and the Hereafter. He craves it intensely, and his craving resembles the dog’s incessant panting, whether disturbed or left alone. The Arabic words for craving and panting are twin siblings, alike in sound and meaning.

Ibn Jurayj said: “The dog’s heart is cut off; it has no heart. If you drive it away, it pants, and if you leave it alone, it pants. It is like someone who abandons guidance: he has no heart; his heart is simply cut off.”

I say: By its heart’s being cut off, he means that it has no heart to enable it to be patient and refrain from