Except the oppressed among the men, that is, those of strong preparedness, those whose concupiscent and irascible faculties have been strengthened while their preparedness has also been strong but who have not been able to curb these by wayfaring along the path of truth; nor have they turned to their estimative and imaginative faculties and invalidated their preparednesses with corrupt beliefs. They have thus remained captive in their corporeal faculties, their preparedness illuminated by the light of knowledge but unable to remove their fetters in order to wayfare; women, those whose preparedness falls short of the level of perfection of knowledge and wayfaring along the path of realisation, those of weak faculties and the simple-minded regarding whom it was said, 'The majority of the inhabitants of Paradise shall be those simple souls'; and children, that is, the deficient who fall short of attaining the degree of perfection because of a jealousy (ghayra) on the part of the attributes of the soul that affects them; who are unable to devise a plan, because of their inability and incapacity to break the attributes of the soul or curb caprice through spiritual discipline, and are not guided to a way, because they do not know how to wayfare and because of their being deprived of the light of the guidance of the religious law.
