gratitude will be given to you in Paradise in the form of a truly delicious food.1
Second Indication: Licit love for your instinctual soul in this world is not a love built on its good qualities, but rather one that sees its short-comings and trains it with a compassion that seeks to perfect it, and that impels it towards good. This love results in giving to the soul objects of love worthy of it in Paradise.
As is explicitly stated and proved by a great number of verses in the Qur’an, when the soul utilises its desires and wishes correctly and employs its faculties and senses in the best way in this world, that is, in the way of God Almighty, as a result of this licit and worshipful love the Absolutely Generous One will bestow on it houris in Paradise, the everlasting realm. He will clothe these houris in seventy varieties of the finery of Paradise. He will adorn their beings with seventy kinds of beauty that will carress and gratify all the senses of the soul. Each houri will be like a miniature animated Paradise.
Furthermore, your love of youth in this world, that is, the result of expending the power of youth in worship, will be eternal youth in the realm of bliss.
Third Indication: Licit love for your wife in this world is sincere love in consequence of her delicate tenderness, fine virtues and good character, together with your protecting her from disobeying God obstinately and sinning. The Absolutely Merciful One has promised that as a result of this licit love your wife shall be given to you as an eternal wife in the hereafter, the realm of bliss. She will be in a form more beautifully adorned and attractive than the Houris. You will relate to one another in delight your former adventures in the world, bringing to mind old memories. She will be an intimate, gracious and eternal friend, who loves and is beloved. And, most certainly, that which He promises shall definitely be given.
Fourth Indication: The result of licit love for parents and children is this. According to the Qur’an, the Most Merciful of the Merciful will bestow on that happy family, even though their stations may be quite different, the pure pleasure of each other’s company in the everlasting realm.
He will return children who die before reaching the age of fifteen years, that is, the age of puberty, once more to the embrace of their fathers and mothers, in a manner appropriate to Paradise. They will be most beautifully adorned and lovable, in the form of the children of Paradise, who are known
Baghawi, Masabih al-Sunna, iii, 197; Musnad, iii, 439; Ibn Maja, ii, 1093, No: 3285.