forbidden things, which are not allowed to be practiced for the purpose of religious devotion.
That [restraint] is better for them, as Paul the Apostle pointed out in the fifteenth chapter of his epistle [1 Corinthians 15:33], saying: "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners."
Al-Sayyid al-Muntajib—may God sanctify him—said:
He who accompanies the noble shall depart honored, And the companion of the mangy, by proximity, becomes mangy.1
He [the Almighty] forbade the "believing women"—who symbolize those who have not yet reached maturity in Monotheism—from revealing what is not permissible to reveal of the bodily members, which symbolize the Luminous Persons (Al-Ashkhas al-Nuraniyya), to others who are the Opposites (Al-Addad). And [He commanded] the guarding of their "private parts," which symbolize by the ears, eyes, tongue, and its speech, as we have previously stated, and the senses and limbs related to them through which the outward sciences and creeds are practiced.