able beauty is the fineness of character that accompanies the delicacy and refinement peculiar to her. As for her most precious and sweet beauty, it is her earnest, sincere, sublime and luminous compassion. This beautiful tenderness and fineness of character continues and increases until the end of her days. Moreover, that weak and delicate creature’s rights of respect will be protected by that love. Otherwise, when her superficial beauty fades the poor woman will lose her rights, even when she most needs them.

And to love the prophets and saints as God Almighty’s highly esteemed bondsmen is to do so for the sake and in the name of God Almighty, and from that point of view it pertains to Him.

And to love and preserve life as most precious wealth and capital that will gain eternal life, and a comprehensive treasury yielding eternal perfections which Almighty God has given to you and to all humanity, and to employ it in His service, is, once again, in one respect, love that pertains to the True Object of Worship.

Also, to admire, love, and put to proper use the grace and beauty of youth as being a fine, sweet and beautiful bounty of Almighty God is a sort of licit and thankful love.

And to love the spring thoughtfully as being the page of the subtlest and most beautiful inscriptions of Almighty God’s luminous names and the finely adorned and glittering exhibition of the All-Wise Maker’s antique art is to love His names.

And to love this world as being the tillage for the hereafter, [^24] as a mirror of the divine names and a missive of God Almighty, and as a temporary guesthouse, on condition that the evil-commanding soul does not interfere, is to do so for God Almighty’s sake.

[^24]:See, al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn, iv, 19; al-Sahāwī, al-Maqāṣid al-Ḥasana, 497; ‘Alī al-Qārī, al-Asrār al-Marfū’a, 205; al-‘Ajlūnī, Kashf al-Khafā’, i, 495.

In Short: Love this world and the creatures in it as pointing to a meaning beyond themselves, like a word. Do not love them just for themselves. Say, “How beautifully they are made.” Do not say, “How beautiful they are.” Allow no opportunity to other loves to enter into your inner heart, for the inner heart is the mirror of the Eternally Besought One and pertains only to Him. Say, “O God, grant us love for You, and love for that which will draw us closer to You.”

Thus, if in this form, all the loves you have enumerated will give a pain-free pleasure, and, in one respect, an unending union. Moreover, they will increase love of God. They are licit loves, and are, furthermore, a sort of gratitude which is pure pleasure, and thought, which is pure love.