a man’s love for his wife or concubine, it may be so intense that it leads him to act unjustly, doing what is unlawful for her sake and neglecting his duties—as happens so often. He may even wrong his son by his earlier wife because of his love for his new wife, and comply with her blameworthy demands in ways that harm his religious and worldly affairs. For example, he may single her out for an inheritance to which she is not entitled, give her family positions of authority and wealth in ways that transgress Allah’s limits, spend extravagantly on her, or grant her control over forbidden matters that harm his religious and worldly affairs. All this concerns passionate love for a woman with whom intercourse is lawful for him. What, then, of passionate love for a woman to whom he is not married, or for males among mankind? It entails evils that none but the Lord of all servants can count. It is among the diseases that corrupt a person’s religion and honour, and may then corrupt his mind and, thereafter, his body.

Allah Most High says:

“So do not be soft in speech, lest he in whose heart is disease should be moved with desire.”

When someone whose heart is afflicted with the disease of lust and desire for a person’s physical form hears the person he desires speaking softly, his hopes are aroused. Such hope strengthens his desire and pursuit, thereby intensifying the disease. The opposite happens when he has no hope of attaining the person he desires: hopelessness removes expectation, so desire weakens, and love consequently weakens. A person has no wish to pursue what he has no hope of attaining. Thus, no action at all accompanies his desire; it remains merely an inward thought—unless accompanied by speech, looking, or the like, in which case he sins thereby.