And the third is like someone who tastes the honey and experiences its flavour and sweetness. Clearly, this is higher than what preceded it. This is why people of spiritual knowledge speak of their own tasting and inward experience. As the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said in an authentic hadith:

“Whoever possesses three qualities will experience the sweetness of faith: that Allah and His Messenger are dearer to him than anything else; that he loves a person only for Allah’s sake; and that he hates returning to disbelief, after Allah has rescued him from it, as much as he hates being thrown into the Fire.”

He also said, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“He has tasted the flavour of faith who is content with Allah as his Lord, Islam as his religion, and Muhammad as his Messenger.”

People thus fall into three degrees regarding the sweetness and flavour of faith that believers experience and taste.

The first is someone who knows of this—for example, someone whose shaykh tells him about it and whom he believes, or who receives accounts of what people of spiritual knowledge have reported about themselves, or who discovers traces of their states that indicate it.

The second is someone who witnesses and observes this firsthand—for example, someone who observes states among people of spiritual knowledge, truthfulness, and certainty that enable him to recognize their inward experiences and what they taste. In reality, however, he has not witnessed what they have tasted and experienced; rather, he has witnessed what points to it. Nevertheless, his knowledge is more immediate than that of someone who is merely told or who draws inferences from the traces of their states.

The third is to attain within himself, through tasting and inward experience, what he had