Some of these people may think that they cannot follow the path to Allah Most High except through a religious innovation. Likewise, self-indulgent sinners may think that they cannot fulfil their obligations or refrain from forbidden things except through the sins they commit. This happens to a great many people.
Some say that they cannot perform the prayers and avoid forbidden speech—backbiting and the like—except by consuming hashish. Another says that consuming it helps him derive knowledge and clear his mind. Some even call it “the wellspring of thought and remembrance” and “the awakener of dormant resolve.” All this is self-deception and Satan’s scheming against these people and others. In truth, it blinds the mind, and whoever consumes it becomes inarticulate and deranged, unaware of what he is saying.
Likewise, some of these people say that their love for Allah, eagerness to worship, fervour, ecstasy, longing, and other such feelings cannot be fully realised except by listening to poems, keeping company with a “witness”—whether a boy or someone else—and listening to voices and melodies. They claim that hearing these sounds and seeing these stirring forms awakens within them impulses towards asceticism and worship that would not otherwise arise, and that without this they may abandon