Their presence is at the same level. If one follows the sharia (sharia, the sacred law), he does not pay heed, for it is the legitimate path leading to Allah. Allah has legislated it solely so that one may reach Him by the decree of felicity. At the same time, in this state, it is not necessary that whatever one desires should occur at every moment and in every circumstance. A person must know the state in which this shahwa (desire) arises within himself and the moment that necessitates it.
This accidental shahwa is related to acts of obedience. For example, seeing a place and admiring its nature, wishing to perform prayer there, or, due to a certain virtue, teaching it to another at that moment—such a state necessitates it. Undoubtedly, this situation leaves a negative effect upon one's state with Allah. The measure of such pleasure is not a divine witnessing, but rather action. This is a hidden snare. (Futūḥāt, II, 187)
Shahwa is an instrument of the nafs (the lower self), which rises and falls with the rise and fall of the desired thing. Shahwa is the will to take pleasure from that which is appropriate to take pleasure from. Pleasure is divided into spiritual (rūḥānī) and natural (ṭabīʿī). The partial nafs is born from nature. Nature is the mother of the nafs, while the divine spirit (rūḥ-i ilāhī) is its father. Spiritual shahwa, in its essence, cannot escape nature. Whoever takes pleasure in it remains enduring. Only appropriate pleasure can be taken from it.
Between us and the Real (al-Ḥaqq), there is no relation except form. For a human to take pleasure in his own perfection is the strongest form of pleasure. Likewise, taking pleasure in those who share one's own form is the strongest pleasure. The proof is this: a human does not act entirely out of pleasure. He does not become annihilated (fanāʾ) by witnessing (mushāhada) something in its entirety. Love and passion only flow in the spirituality of a person when he falls in love with a woman or a man. The reason is that it is entirely reciprocal; it corresponds to him, for it is of his own form.
Everything in the cosmos is a part (juzʾ) of Him. Only this appropriate part can correspond to Him. Therefore, only when one falls in love with something of his own form does he become annihilated (fanāʾ). The divine manifestation (tajallī) occurs when the form upon which Adam was created is realized in him; then meaning corresponds to meaning, and complete pleasure becomes possible. Shahwa circulates through all the external and internal parts of the human being. This is the shahwa sought by the gnostic inheritors (ʿārifīn). (Futūḥāt, II, 189)
The mother of all idols is the idol of the nafs. The idols seen outwardly are but snakes, whereas the idol of the nafs is a dragon.
The nafs is like flint and iron; the idol is the spark that leaps from the flint. That spark is extinguished by water. (Mathnawī, I, 49)
The spark is extinguished, but can flint and iron themselves be extinguished by water? How can a human be secure as long as these two are with him?
The fire of flint and iron is hidden within them. Water cannot enter their insides to extinguish the fire.
Water only extinguishes fire that is outside. How can it enter the inside of stone and iron?
From flint and iron, which symbolize the nafs and shahwa, the sparks of kufr (disbelief) and all evils leap forth. Their smoke rises.
Even if the water in the vessel or jug runs out, the water of the fountain of the nafs flows fresh and unceasing.
The idol is the black water hidden in the jug. Know that the nafs is the source of this hidden black water.
That carved idol resembles a muddy, dirty, black flood. The idol-carving nafs is the fountain on the main road.
A piece of stone can break a hundred jugs, but the water of the fountain flows ceaselessly. Breaking the idol is easy, very easy, but to think breaking the idol of the nafs is easy is ignorance, sheer ignorance.
The nafs has a trick at every moment, and with each trick, hundreds of Pharaohs and their followers drown in the sea of rebellion.
If you wish to be saved, seek refuge in the Lord of Moses and in Moses. Do not let your faith perish by acting like Pharaoh in pride.
O brother, follow Allah's command and the noble Prophet's sunnah, so that you may be saved from the Abu Jahl of the flesh and from carnal desires... (Mathnawī, I, 50)
Know, after all this, that this fire is the fire of shahwa. The root and leader of sin, crime, and fault is it. The fire outside is extinguished by water; but the fire of shahwa within leads a person to hell.
The fire of shahwa is not extinguished by water, for in its torment and pain, it has the nature of hell.
What is the remedy for the fire of shahwa? It is the light of religion. Just as hell will say to the mu'min (believer): O believer, pass quickly, your light is extinguishing my fire.
What extinguishes this fire? The light of Allah. Take as your master the light of Ibrahim (Abraham) that extinguished the fire of Nimrod.
Let your body, which is like aloeswood, be saved from the fire of your nafs, which is like Nimrod.
The fire of shahwa does not diminish or end. It diminishes only by not giving it what it desires.
If you keep throwing wood into a fire, will it ever go out? Will it ever stop burning wood?
But if you do not throw wood, the fire will go out. Taqwa (God-consciousness) sprinkles water on the fire of shahwa.
How can fire blacken the face that has become rosy and beautiful from the God-consciousness in the hearts?
The wind of anger, the wind of shahwa, the wind of greed sweeps away those who do not perform prayer, who do not pray with the heart.
The one who is a slave to shahwa, the one who is a slave, is in the sight of Allah more worthless than the slaves who are captured and sold. For a war captive or a purchased slave is freed by a single word of his master, but the one enslaved by shahwa lives sweetly, yet dies in much pain.
The one who is a slave to shahwa cannot be freed except by Allah's grace, by attaining Allah's special favor.
Shahwa is such a well that those who fall into it cannot find its bottom; but this fall is not by compulsion or oppression; its sin is due to his own following of the nafs.
He has thrown himself into such a deep well that I cannot find a rope to reach its bottom. (Mathnawī, I, 238)
Will is related to every demand of the intellect and the nafs. This can be something desired or undesired. Shahwa, however, is related to those things in which the nafs feels a special pleasure upon attaining them. The locus of shahwa is the animal nafs, while the locus of will is the rational nafs (nafs-i nāṭiqa). (Asfār, 329)