One of his statements that would be cited by many later Muslims was the following hadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad):
Three things from this world of yours
have been made lovely to me:
perfume,
women,
but that which brings delight to my eyes
is prayer.
"Here perfume may be taken as an appreciation of all that is natural and beautiful indeed, the entirety of the natural cosmos. Women are the connection, the linchpin, between the natural realm of beauty and the spiritual domain. Later Muslim mystics, such as the thirteenth-century Ibn 'Arabi, interpreted this saying of Muhammad's to mean that the spiritual and the sacred ('prayer') enter this world ('perfume') through women."
— Omid Safi, Muhammad , Memories of Muhammad by Omid Safi