As for the second benefit of lowering the gaze, it is illumination of the heart and discernment. Allah Most High said of the people of Lot:

“By your life, they are wandering blindly in their intoxication.”

Attachment to physical forms corrupts the intellect, blinds inner perception, and leaves the heart intoxicated—indeed, maddened. As it has been said:

Two intoxications: passion and wine—
When will one beset by both regain his senses?

It has also been said:

They said, “You have gone mad for your beloved.” I replied,
“Passion is worse than the madness of the mad.
Its captive never regains his senses,
While the madman’s fits come only now and then.”

Allah, glorified is He, mentioned the Verse of Light immediately after the verses concerning lowering the gaze, saying:

“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.”

Shujāʿ ibn Shāh al-Kirmānī’s discernment never failed him. He used to say: “Whoever cultivates his outward self by following the Sunnah and his inward self through constant