If you put the same question before Allah...

If you put the same question before Allah, the Prophets and the infallible Imams, you would hear “you have to do according what Allah wants, do not desire to have what is not your right, you have to be satisfied with your desires and have to be satisfied with the impermissible things, you must not desire to wrong the others which means to wrong Allah, family and society and all kinds of injustice are impermissible.” One needs to satisfy his stomach, his lusts and his imagination too.

If these needs and desires are within the circle of the divine restrictions and social rules, they will assure the safety of the environment, the individual and social life and they will keep reputation, dignity and perfect morals. But if these desires trespass the divine restrictions and social rules, they will lead to confuse the life, to lose the dignity and to let vices and corruption spread.

Anyhow, man, according to all his affairs of life, has two kinds of desires: the rational and permissible desires and the delusive and impermissible desires. The rational desires are the desires which agree with the will of Allah and hence they enter easily into the soul and heart and submit to the divine laws and restrictions.

In this case one does not want wealth or a house except from permissible ways, does not want to satisfy lusts except by legal marriage, does not want food except for the sake of Allah and to be able to protect the weak and oppressed people and when one wants to delight one’s eyes and ears, one does that by the right and permissible ways and then one becomes faithful, pious, benevolent, dutiful, kind to people, sincere to the society and always tries to please his Lord and to assure his happiness in this life and the afterlife by the “great jihad[^1]”.

As for the delusive desires they are the desires that come out of one’s self only as a result of selfishness. They appear from a blind Heart and lead to pride, hypocrisy and slipping in the valley of deviation. In this case one looks for wealth in any way and by any means. One desires to collect wealth even by usury, by force, by trick, taking bribes, robbing, cheating and plundering. When one wants a house, he dares to extort the properties and houses of the others.

When he wants to satisfy sexual lust, he does not care whether it is by masturbation, sodomy, adultery and the likes. When one wants a high position, he rushes to get it even if he destroys the rights of the others.