or loved or within one’s power, nor is everything within one’s power willed or loved. Since this is so, something’s being known and affirmed does not necessarily mean that it is loved and worshipped. Rather, knowledge is indispensable, as is something else whereby one becomes the lover and the other the beloved.

Thus, the claim that mere knowledge and affirmation within a person constitute faith and necessarily produce deeds of the heart—so that their absence indicates the absence of knowledge—is comparable to saying that Allah’s mere knowledge of the order of the world necessarily brings it into existence, without any will on His part. It also resembles the philosophers’ claim that the soul’s happiness consists merely in knowing realities, without coupling this with love for Allah Most High and worship of Him, without which happiness cannot be complete. It is likewise comparable to saying that the perfection of the body or soul consists in love without any accompanying voluntary movement, or that pleasure consists merely in perception and awareness.

All rational people agree that this is mistaken. Rather, one must perceive something agreeable; and this agreeableness requires love on the part of the perceiver for what is perceived. That love, harmony, and agreeableness are not identical with perceiving the object and being aware of it.

Many philosophers, physicians, and their followers have said that “pleasure” is the perception of what is agreeable. Yet their account falls short. Rather, pleasure is a state that follows the perception of what is agreeable. Consider someone who loves and craves something sweet, then perceives it through tasting and eating. Pleasure is not merely the tasting itself, but something he experiences within himself that accompanies the tasting.

Thus, two things are required “initially,” and two “subsequently.” “Initially,” there must be awareness of the beloved object and love for it. What one has no awareness of cannot conceivably be desired; and what one is aware of, but has no love for within oneself, is not desired. Then, when