Does having multiple wives for the purpose of enjoying them lower the believer's rank in Paradise?

Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner asks: Does having multiple wives for the purpose of enjoying them contradict asceticism and lower the believer's rank in Paradise?

Answer:
My brother, asceticism is not about abandoning what is permissible; it is not about abandoning what is permissible. Asceticism is abandoning what is forbidden, what is disliked, and what you do not need. A man may need wives; there is no one who is a worshipper or an ascetic who is not satisfied with one wife; he wants four wives. This is what Allah has made permissible. It does not diminish his asceticism. So what is asceticism? It is not that you abandon what you need from what is permissible. Note this: this is not asceticism, abandoning what you need from what is permissible. Rather, asceticism is abandoning what you do not need. Yes.