the pleasure and sweetness he finds in contentment. If he loses that sweetness and pleasure, he can no longer endure pain and bitterness. How, then, can he conceivably be content without possessing enough of the sweetness of contentment to bear the bitterness of hardships?

Such words are of the kind uttered by someone in a state of spiritual intoxication and self-effacement, who has experienced the sweetness of contentment within himself and imagines that it will remain with him whatever his condition. This is a grave error on his part, like the error of Sumnūn discussed earlier.

If, however, he means that he should not ask for enjoyment of created things, but should instead ask for something higher, then he has erred in two respects. First, he has failed to include what he seeks within Paradise, although it is Paradise’s highest bliss. Second, he has acknowledged that he seeks something while remaining content. If contentment does not conflict with this request, neither does it conflict with another request when he needs what he is seeking.

It is well known that his enjoyment of gazing upon Allah can only be complete if he is safe from the Fire and enjoys the lesser delights of Paradise. Whatever is indispensable to attaining what is sought is itself sought. Thus, his request to gaze upon Allah is also a request for everything that this necessarily entails, including deliverance from the Fire. His contentment therefore does not conflict with seeking benefit and protection from harm, nor with seeking Paradise and protection from the Fire, nor with seeking anything else necessarily entailed by that vision. The contradiction in his statement is thus clear.