Admittedly, some of them may concentrate on particular acts of worship, such as remembrance of Allah, and recommend this at the outset so that the heart may thereby be purified, become steadfast in faith, and cease turning its attention to anything other than Allah. This is not merely the abandonment of desires. Rather, remembrance of Allah Most High itself, and keeping Him in mind, elevate the soul and reform, illuminate, strengthen, and steady the heart. Abandoning desires merely assists in this or is a condition for it; it does not constitute the entire path. For privations cannot in themselves produce positive realities, though they may be conditions for them.

Furthermore, they and others among the theologians, jurists, and hadith scholars maintain that the forms of knowledge which speculative thinkers claim cannot be attained through inference may be attained through the innate disposition, self-evidently and necessarily, when the soul abandons its desires and turns towards seeking the truth. This—and Allah knows best—is the underlying point that prompted him to say what he said about them. Yet this is not the position of the Sufis alone: accomplished theologians agree with them on this, including even Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī and others like him. For, in discussing the obligation of rational inquiry, he said—after mentioning that the knowledge one is obliged to acquire cannot be attained