the women who cut their hands?” This is a lesson that restrains souls from disobeying Allah and leads them to hold fast to piety. He likewise makes this clear at the end of the surah, saying:

“Indeed, in their stories there is a lesson for people of understanding.”

Nevertheless, some people, including women, enjoy listening to this surah because it mentions passionate love and related matters, out of their love for such things and their desire for sexual immorality. Some even deliberately have women and others listen to it out of a love for evil. They incline toward such things, yet do not choose to hear the punishment and prohibitions concerning them in Sūrat al-Nūr. One of the early generations even said:

“Whatever I gained in Sūrat Yūsuf, I spent in Sūrat al-Nūr.”

Allah, Exalted is He, says:

“We send down of the Quran that which is a healing and a mercy for the believers.”

Then He says:

“But it only increases the wrongdoers in loss.”

He also says:

“Whenever a surah is revealed, some of them say, ‘Which of you has this increased in faith?’ As for those who believe, it has increased them in faith, and they rejoice.”

“But as for those in whose hearts is a disease, it has added impurity to their impurity, and they died as disbelievers.”

Thus, anyone who enjoys listening to such accounts in order to arouse blameworthy love, but dislikes listening to such admonitions because he is unwilling to resist and dispel that love, is blameworthy. This category also includes recounting the circumstances of disbelievers and the wicked, and anything else that encourages disobedience to Allah and turns people away from His path.