Allah has made it an outward image and parable, and He, Glory be to Him, applied His discourse to it in the revealed Books through praise and censure so that we may use its outward examples to infer the inward luminous knowledges and persons.

Just as He forbade us from drinking it among the Opposites to indicate the necessity of upholding the outward Sharia among them as a veil for the Inward, and He permitted its drinking among the believers in private to indicate the obligation of rejecting the belief in the outward laws in private and among the believers. Thus, its prohibition among the Opposites is to indicate the prohibition of openly declaring the inward sciences among them, just as its permissibility among the believers is to indicate the permissibility of manifesting the inward sciences among them.

As for the application of His discourse, the Exalted, to it through censure and prohibition, it is to indicate the censure of the censured persons and the prohibition of believing in their corrupt sciences. And this wine which He forbade to them outwardly and inwardly, He permitted to us outwardly and inwardly; and if the lifting of religious obligation were not permissible the outward [obligations] from the believers, it would have been necessary to forbid this outward wine to us as He forbade it to the people of the outward.