may Allah bless him and grant him peace, concerning the words of Allah Most High:

‘Allah only undertakes to accept repentance from those who do evil out of ignorance and then repent soon afterwards.’

They replied: ‘Everyone who disobeys Allah is ignorant, and everyone who repents before death has repented soon afterwards.’”

A person acts only with hope—even when he is fearful and afraid, he strives only for deliverance and flees only from what he fears. Hope arises only through the promise of good instilled in his soul: attaining what he loves or escaping what he dislikes. Every human being therefore holds beliefs, affirming some things and rejecting others. He also has an intention and a will directed towards what he hopes for—something he considers desirable and attainable—or towards having what he loves with him, or warding off what he dislikes.

Allah created the servant to seek good and hope to attain it through his deeds. If he denies the truth instead of affirming it, and does not hope for good so as to seek it and work towards it, he is a loser through his failure to affirm the truth and pursue good. How much worse, then, if he denies the truth and dislikes the very desire for good? And how much worse if he believes falsehood and desires evil?

Thus, ‘Abd Allah ibn Mas‘ūd mentioned that the human heart receives a prompting from the angel and a prompting from Satan. The angel’s prompting is an affirmation of truth, which does not belong to the category of corrupt belief. Satan’s prompting is a denial of truth and a promise of evil. This belongs to the category of desiring evil and expecting it to occur: either with hope for it, if it accords with the soul’s desires, or with fear of it, if the soul does not love it. Hope and fear each necessarily entail the other.