It is also reported that Friday is the Day of Increase—the Friday of the days of the Hereafter. Hadiths and transmitted reports bear this out. Allah, Most High, says concerning the disbelievers:

“No indeed! On that Day they will be veiled from their Lord.”

“Then they will surely burn in Hell.”

The torment of being veiled from Him is therefore the greatest kind of torment, and the pleasure of looking upon His Face is the highest of pleasures. Their enjoyment of all other created things cannot take the place of their enjoyment of Him, Most High.

These two foundations are established in the Quran and the Sunnah. They are affirmed by people of knowledge and faith, discussed by Sufi masters of spiritual insight, and upheld by Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah and the ordinary members of the Muslim community. They belong to the natural disposition with which Allah created humankind. Those who affirm them may sometimes argue against their denial through scriptural texts and transmitted reports, and at other times through direct experience and inward feeling—when it is the pleasure that is denied—for tasting and experiencing it refutes its denial. At other times, they may argue by drawing comparisons between similar cases, using rational analogies.

The third aspect:

No created being holds the power to benefit or harm the servant, to give or withhold, to guide or lead astray, to grant victory or abandon him, to lower or raise him, or to honour or humiliate him. Rather, it is his Lord who created him, provided for him, granted him insight, guided him and bestowed His blessings abundantly upon him. If Allah afflicts him with harm, none but He can remove it; and if He grants him a blessing, none but He can take it away. A servant, however, can neither benefit nor harm him except by Allah’s permission.

This aspect is more evident to ordinary people than the first, and for this reason the Quran addresses them through it more often than through the first. Yet when a discerning person reflects upon the Quran’s approach, he finds that Allah calls His servants through this aspect to the first.

This aspect calls for relying upon Allah, seeking His help, supplicating to Him and asking of Him, rather than anyone else. It also calls for loving and worshipping Allah because of His kindness towards His servant and His abundant bestowal of