But if a person loves unrelated women, beardless youths, or the like, this love includes animal desire; it is not merely a love of beauty. Such animal desire is something Allah hates and abhors, and its consequences are also forbidden, whether this love is accompanied by a grave sexual sin or involves seeking pleasure through looking, listening, or other means.

Such enjoyment constitutes the preliminaries to intercourse. If intercourse is lawful, its preliminaries are lawful; if intercourse is forbidden, its preliminaries are forbidden—even if this means forgoing beauty, just as it means forgoing the pleasure of forbidden intercourse. For the things involved that Allah hates and abhors far outweigh the love that beauty alone inspires. Moreover, this entails forfeiting things Allah loves—piety, chastity, and attention to what benefits one’s religious and worldly life—which are far greater than the mere love of beauty involved. For this reason, such attachments are blameworthy and forbidden. Indeed, the Lawgiver has forbidden looking in such cases with pleasure and desire, and even without pleasure or desire if the beholder fears temptation. According to one of the two scholarly opinions, which many followers of al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others consider correct, temptation is to be feared when looking at a beautiful unrelated woman or a handsome beardless youth. This may vary according to differences in customs and temperaments. Looking out of necessity, however, without desire or pleasure, is permissible.

This is why neither Allah nor His Messenger nor the people of knowledge and faith have enjoined passionate love for beautiful forms