Once this is clear, all the good deeds for which a person is rewarded have a positive existence, as a blessing from Allah Most High. Whatever good the soul loves and whatever evil it hates, it is He who has endeared faith to the believers and adorned it in their hearts, and made disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience hateful to them.

Section

As for evil deeds, they originate in ignorance and wrongdoing. No one commits an evil, reprehensible deed except because he does not know that it is evil and reprehensible, or because of his desire and his soul’s inclination toward it. Nor does anyone neglect an obligatory good deed except because he does not know that it is obligatory, or because his soul dislikes it.

In reality, all evil deeds ultimately stem from ignorance. Otherwise, if a person possessed beneficial knowledge that doing something would cause him harm outweighing its benefit, he would not do it. For this is characteristic of a rational person. Thus, if there is among good deeds something he knows would cause him harm outweighing its benefit—such as falling from a high place or into a river that would drown him, passing beside a leaning wall, entering a blazing fire, throwing his wealth into the sea, and the like—