abstain from harmful things or persevere with unpleasant medicines, because this affords them some immediate relief and pleasure. Yet it brings them immense pain afterward or hastens their death.
So too are the children of Adam ignorant, wronging themselves. Each hastens toward what pleasure makes enticing and shuns what his soul dislikes, in ways that are not good for him. This brings them pain and punishment, either in this world or in the Hereafter, involving terrible torment and the greatest ruin.
“Piety” means protecting oneself from what is harmful by doing what is beneficial. Abstaining from harm necessarily entails making use of what is beneficial. Yet someone may make use of what is beneficial while also making use of what is harmful, and thus not be among the pious. As for dispensing with both the harmful and the beneficial, this is impossible: when a person cannot take nourishment, his body feeds on the substances already within it, which harm him until he perishes.
This is why the good outcome belongs to piety and the pious: they protect themselves from what harms them, so their ultimate outcome is Islam and honor. They may initially experience pain from taking the medicine and abstaining from harm, as when performing righteous deeds they find disagreeable. As He, Most High, says:
“Fighting has been prescribed for you, though it is hateful to you. But perhaps you hate something that is good for you, and perhaps you love something that is bad for you.”
And because there are so many wrongful deeds that are desired, as He, Most High, says:
“But as for the one who feared standing before