They have ears, but they don’t pay any heed to what they hear.

They have ears, but they don’t pay any heed to what they hear. They have tongues, but they speak not. They have hearts, but they don’t think aright! Then Allah adds that such men are worse than the animals. They are like the silk-worms that produce the silk thread, wind it around their bodies and perish in the process! These, according to Allah, are the neglectful men. If someone has not received spiritual nourishment, his soul is dead.

The Prophet (s) has said: There are two blessings for men—welfare and peace. Truly, these are great blessings for men. When a man is ill, he loses interest in everything. Sometimes a person is physically well, but his spirit is ill, as the Quran says, their hearts are sick. This according to the Quran is a most dangerous state of affairs. When the heart is sick, the person rises against the Quran, the Prophet (s) and his vicegerents (a.s).

He starts to interpret the verses of the Quran to suit himself; he distorts their meaning to suit himself. In the beginning of the Sura Ali Imran there are certain verses indicating that in the Quran there are Muhkam (definitive) verses and others that are Mutashabih (Ambiguous). Such men pick up ambiguous verses and try to interpret them to suit their selfish ends. From somewhere they get a tradition and explain it to suit themselves.

They invent the speech of revered people, and distort it to suit themselves. When the spirit is ill, it is not like physical illness. This illness has special characteristics. The spiritually ill person is at war with the Holy Quran. Therefore, the Quran says it is a cure, but for the spiritually ill, there is nothing but loss, and more loss!