encompasses all of this, they said: Gatherings devoted to discussing the lawful and unlawful, and similar matters involving mention of Allah’s commands and prohibitions, His promises and warnings, and the like, are gatherings of remembrance.

The aim here is to understand “the degrees of benefit and harm,” what Allah and His Messenger love, and what He does not hate in what Allah and His Messenger have commanded. Such commands serve to secure the benefits He loves and is pleased with and to avert the harms He hates and is displeased with. Whatever has been prohibited involves what He hates and is displeased with and prevents what He loves and is pleased with.

Many people’s outlook falls short of recognizing what Allah and His Messenger love concerning the benefits and harms affecting hearts and souls, the realities of faith that benefit them, and the heedlessness and desire that harm them. As Allah Most High said:

‘And do not obey one whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance, who follows his own desires, and whose affairs have exceeded all bounds.’

And He said, Most High:

‘So turn away from whoever turns away from Our remembrance and desires nothing but the life of this world. That is the extent of their knowledge.’

Thus, in many rulings, you find that many such people recognize only those benefits and harms that concern wealth and the body. When they go beyond this, the furthest many of them reach is to consider “governing the soul and refining character” within the limits of their knowledge. Similar discussions are found among would-be philosophers and the Qarmatians, such as the authors of the “Epistles of the Brethren of Purity” and others like them. They discuss governing the soul and refining character according to their knowledge of philosophy, adding to it whatever they suppose to be part of the revealed Law. Yet even at the furthest point they reach, they remain far below the Jews and Christians, as has been explained at length elsewhere.