There are among these people those who admit for the...

There are among these people those who admit for the prophets and holy men [ awliyā ] (' a ) nothing other than corporeal states and bodily Paradise, i.e. satisfying the animal desire. They take the greatness of the states of the other world to be similar to the greatness of this world, with vast orchards, running rivers and a multitude of houris and youths and palaces.

When there is a talk about love, affection and divine attraction, they assault the speaker with vulgar language and ugly words, as if they themselves have been insulted and they were retaliating.

These people block the way of humanity and they are the thorns of the road to knowing Allah, and the satans who deceive men, hindering groups upon groups of the servants of Allah from Allah, His names, His attributes, His remembrance and remembering, and directing their attentions to the animal stomach and sexual desires.

They are satanic agents who sit in ambush on the straight path of Allah according to the āyah : “ I shall surely lurk in ambush for them on your straight path,” [^4] In order to prevent the servants of Allah from getting familiar with their Lord and from ridding themselves of the darkness of animal desires, including inclination towards houris and palaces.

These people may resort to evidences from the invocations of the prophets and the infallible (' a ) in which they also demand houris and palaces. But this is due to the shortcomings of this group who recognize no difference between loving Allah's grace, which is loved because it is the gift of the Beloved, in itself being a sign of affection and care, and merely loving the houris and palaces independently, which is within the nature of the animal desire.

Loving Allah's gifts is Loving Allah, which consequently covers the favors of Allah and His graces: I love the whole world, for the whole world is of Him.[^5] The love of the abode did not infatuate me, but the love of the one who resides therein.[^6] Otherwise, what would, 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib (' a ) do with houris and palaces? How could that great man be associated with the appetites of the self and the animal desires?

The one whose worship is that of a free man, his reward cannot be that of traders. The rein of the pen snapped and I wandered away from the main subject.