people of disobedience and wickedness, or commit other sins—then repel it, abandon it, neither accept it nor act upon it, and be certain that it comes from the accursed Satan. If you find that they permit it, as with permissible desires for food, drink, clothing, and marriage, reject it too and do not accept it. Know that it is prompted by the self and its desires, which you have been commanded to oppose and treat as an enemy.”

I say:

By abandoning what is permissible, he means when it has not been commanded, as he has explained elsewhere. When a person does something permissible in obedience to a command, this is among Allah’s greatest blessings upon him, and it is obligatory for him. I have already explained that he calls people to the path of the foremost, those brought near to Allah; he does not stop at the path of the righteous, the people of the right.

He said:

“If you find neither its prohibition nor its permissibility in the Book and the Sunnah, but it is something whose purpose you do not understand—for example, you are told, ‘Go to such-and-such a place and meet so-and-so, a righteous man,’ although you have no need to go there or to meet that righteous man, since Allah Most High has rendered you independent of him through the blessings of knowledge and understanding He has bestowed upon you—then pause and do not rush into it.

Would you then say, ‘Could this inspiration come from anyone but the True One?’ and act upon it? Rather, wait for the good in this matter and for the True One to act, through the recurrence of that inspiration and a command to proceed, or through a sign appearing to those who know Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He—a sign brought about by the discerning among Allah’s friends and the divinely supported among the abdāl. You should not rush into it because you do not know its consequences or how the matter will turn out, and it may be that