the Prophet’s saying (s), “Allah is beautiful and loves beauty,” while forgetting his saying, “Allah does not look at your appearance or your wealth, but He looks at your hearts and your deeds.”

They appeal to the comfort and pleasure this brings to the soul, just as these others do. They honor the beautiful person for displaying his beauty and allowing them to behold it, just as these others honor the person with a beautiful voice for offering it and allowing them to hear it. Indeed, beauty of appearance and voice are often combined in one person, as with female slave singers.

Satan has made loving beautiful forms seem attractive to many ascetics and worshippers, persuading them that, provided it involves no sexual immorality, it is love for Allah’s sake—just as he has persuaded these others that listening to such singing is for Allah’s sake. Some of them concur in saying this; others outwardly claim that their love is free of sexual immorality while inwardly desiring it, and this is the more common case.

But the corrupt view they have openly expressed—that one should love for Allah’s sake what Allah has not commanded