forms mentioned in this hadith: looking, taking pleasure, and conversing. Some go further, to touching and intimate physical contact; others kiss and look. All of this is forbidden. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has forbidden us to let pity for those who commit adultery prevent us from carrying out the prescribed punishment upon them. How much more, then, should we apply lesser measures, such as shunning, inward discipline, prohibition, rebuke, and the like. Rather, the defiantly sinful should be hated and detested for indulging in the forms of adultery mentioned in the preceding hadith and elsewhere.

For even if someone passionately in love desires only to look at the beloved and enjoy their appearance and conversation, his cure does not lie in giving his soul what it loves and craves in these things. He is ill. If a sick person craves something harmful or recoils from taking unpleasant medicine, and our pity leads us to prevent him from drinking it, we have helped him pursue what harms or destroys him and abandon what benefits him. His illness then worsens until he dies. The same applies to the sinful person who is passionately in love, and others like him: he is ill. Compassion and mercy towards him do not mean allowing him to indulge his forbidden desires. He must not be helped to do so, nor allowed to abandon the acts of obedience that benefit him and remove his illness. The Most High said:

“Indeed, prayer prohibits immorality and wrongdoing.”

That is, prayer contains healing—and something greater still.

Rather, compassion towards him means helping him take the medicine, however unpleasant it may be: prayer, for example, with its words of remembrance and supplications. It also means keeping him from whatever strengthens his disease and worsens his illness, even if he craves it. Let no one imagine that, if he obtains gratification