This view is among the most untenable, both according to revelation and reason. People in this world are rewarded and punished through things external to themselves; how much more so in the abode of recompense! Some of what they affirm concerning these two matters is true, but their falsehood lies in denying what Allah and His Messenger have revealed.

These people hold that Adam was only ever in a paradise of knowledge, and that his descent was a decline in his degree of knowledge. This is false. Nevertheless, whatever truth they affirm remains true, and Adam’s story points to it by way of drawing an analogous lesson—what the Sufis call “allusion”—not because this is the intended meaning of the verse. Rather, other verses establish it: they indicate that whoever rejects the truth is punished by having his heart sealed, so that he cannot grasp knowledge or understand its intended meaning, and that his enemy is given power over him and he suffers humiliation. As the Most High says concerning the Jews:

“Humiliation and destitution were imposed upon them.”

“That was because they disobeyed and used to transgress.”

There is no doubt that the pleasure of knowledge is the greatest of pleasures. The “pleasure” that endures after death and benefits one in the Hereafter is the pleasure of knowing Allah and acting for His sake; this is faith in Him. Yet they equate this with absolute existence.

Furthermore, mere knowledge of Him, if unaccompanied by love and worship of Him, but accompanied instead by love for someone else, whoever that may be, may bring a person some of the greatest torment in this world and the Hereafter. Yet they locate perfect pleasure in knowledge alone.