The same applies to “renunciation and desire.” Anyone who fails to consider what Allah and His Messenger love and dislike in these matters may neglect obligations and commit forbidden acts. For example, someone may forgo the food or fatty foods he needs until his reason becomes impaired or he becomes too weak to fulfil his duties towards Allah Most High or His servants. Or he may abandon enjoining right, forbidding wrong, and jihad in Allah’s cause because these involve harming some people and exacting retribution from them, until the disbelievers and the wicked gain ascendancy over the righteous and virtuous. He fails to consider the greater benefit of such action.

Allah Most High has said:

“They ask you about fighting in the sacred month. Say, ‘Fighting in it is a grave offence, but barring people from Allah’s path, disbelieving in Him, barring access to the Sacred Mosque, and expelling its people from it are graver in Allah’s sight. And strife is graver than killing.’”

He, glorified and exalted be He, is saying that although taking lives entails evil, the strife caused by disbelief and the ascendancy of its adherents is greater. Thus, the greater of two evils is averted by accepting the lesser.

Likewise, someone who refrains from slaughtering animals, or considers slaughtering an animal an injustice to it, is ignorant. For this animal must inevitably die; if it is killed for the benefit of human beings