Spirituality #06 – The Emphasis of Love in Islam

One subjects which I have been in my own public life, talking about Islam and things like that deficient in mentioning as much as I should, really is love.

And not least because the religion of Islam has a major emphasis of love, of course, Allah subhanaw taala is referred to as a widow with a loving one. It's one of the names of God Himself. Of course, it was Ali and his masterpiece are here along with Dean, he has a whole Book of Love, which has been translated.

He's gonna talk about some of the things that he mentioned in that book, which I think is very pertinent this discussion.

First of all, what is love? I think this is the first question anyone should ask what is love itself.

And really, a linguistic definition, as mundane as it is, is simply inclination and may learn, okay, which is a help which is love is really an inclination to a thing.

Which is, for like exuberant Love is a higher level, even erotic love, romantic love, whatever you want to translate it as

is the kind of love you would wear infatuation, you see the kind of love you would describe between romantic partners,

a husband and wife, for example.

Now,

to proceed with this, obviously, there are things you can love, it's possible to love humans and nonhumans. Now, what you're talking about here, from a Muslim perspective, or a human perspective, you can love something which is non human, you can be inclined to it. So for example, the Hadith of the Prophet that two things have been made, beloved to me, or lovable to me. And he mentions a peep is one of them, which is perfume,

which is something you smell, it's Elvis le mentioned, it's not something which you see with your eye or is interesting is perceptible through the sense of smell. So you can even love something which you can't see or you can't hear, and which is not human.

But the question is, what do we love them? And what what what is the rationale behind it? Is it something that doesn't have rational? Does love have a rationale?

Yes, it does have rationale. And really, this is the main rationale is about survival. And now this sounds very much like something you would hear from an evolutionary psychologist or something like that. But this is something that Al has that he does mention, quite frankly, in fact, he's very explicit about it.

He says that, you know, we love all things, which fulfill the objective of

basically allowing our existence to continue. It's a kind of survival mechanism. Anything which has the objective of allowing me to exist or continue existing, is something I will love,

which is why people love their family and their friends, because family and friends, you know, they fulfill that objective of allowing you to continue existing. And the case of offspring obviously, it's a different kind of continuity, but it's still a continuity nonetheless.

And so there is a base survival instinct, which is connected to love.

In other words, on another way, you can say that we love things

that can benefit us. And this farm sounds very utilitarian. But nevertheless, it's true. We love those who can benefit us as well. And everything goes back in a sense to this kind of benefit.

But he doesn't numerate that there are different kinds of this is not the only kind of love and as far as very selfish, narcissistic, if you like self love, because what is narcissism, egoism, if not an amplified sense of self love. Everyone has that level of survival egoism in them. This is a hilarious notion that everyone has that it's not unnatural, it's not even something to be ashamed of.

However,

there are different kinds of love. So it says, you can either the cause of as except of love and enumerates them can either be because this thing allows him to exist continue existing. So obviously things that cause an individual pain, he won't love them pleasurable things are loved, because for the most part pleasurable things will bring us closer to a continued existence. The second cause is some kind of a benevolence that some good thing, Sam that another person bestows upon us when people are kind to you, and they be so benevolence you start loving them a little bit. Why? Because you because we want our continued existence basically. And the third causes loving something for its own

sake. Now this is a very interesting

In many ways, he mentioned especially vis a vie with Allah subhanaw taala, which we'll come to now is the highest form of love. In essence, you love something because of what the actual use of that thing is.

Another reason why you might love something is because it's beautiful. It's beautiful, something you love it, you just look at it, even though it may not

benefit you directly, but you look at it and you love it. Like flowers we give example as that it gives you example, flowers, you look at flowers, and you love it, because it's of the beauty that it has within it, you see. And the fifth thing is, he mentioned this kind of in an affinity that someone may have to someone else, because they've been through different maybe experiences that they're similar to them, or they've been through some trauma together. And you know, we've seen this kind of thing, nowadays, trauma, bonding, and these kind of things. But the point is, that these are the five main causes of love, now with this,

Allah's ally, makes the case for loving God.

And he says the following is very, very powerful says Therefore if man's love for himself be necessary, then his love for Him through whom first is coming to be. And second, his continuance in essential being, with all his inward and outward traits, his substance and his accidents occur, must also be necessary. What he's saying here is, if you love yourself,

and if you consider loving yourself to be necessary, then that which brought you about and is continuing to allow you to exist, you should love the ultimate source of that, which is Allah Subhan.

There is nothing

and no one not a family member, not a friend,

that can be as benevolent to you, as Allah subhanaw taala has been in allowing you to exist, and allowing you to continue to exist, whosoever He continues, is besotted by his fleshly appetites as to lack this love, neglects his Lord and Creator, He possesses no authentic knowledge of Him, His gaze is limited to his cravings, and to things of sense. This is the world of phenomenal reality, which he shares fully with the beasts, not the transcendent world, the ground of which no one made tread, except Him, who was close in likeness to the angels, he gazes upon that realm, in proportion to His nearness to angelic quality, but falls far short of it, in the measurement of his plunge to

the level of the beastial world.

If you don't have this love for God,

despite this sad and this benevolence that he has bestowed towards you, then the truth of the matter is that you're ignorant of the reality of God. And this is the point here, because it's not just that God is generous, he's not magnificent towards you.

In a way that human being may be

fine, he is purely munificent where this kind of beautiful benevolence

can be described as motiveless from a selfish perspective. In other words, it doesn't benefit God

to give you

he's not being strategically generous, he gives you he is benevolent to you. And so this is extremely important.

In addition to that, we must appreciate we've got I've described why do we consider things in that beautiful in the first place? What beautifies thing sauce was beautiful vision.

And when we consider that God is perfect, from all perspectives, now we go to the other reason for why we will have things which is that we love things because of their perfection because of their beauty.

If you consider the fact that Allah has perfect qualities, that he's got perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, perfect power, that should shake something within us, move something within us to loving Allah subhanaw taala not just because of what he gives us, but because of who he is. And that's a higher level that is higher level love. And he mentions these kinds of things. For example, His powers perfection was or the lack of power is imperfection or perfection, splendor, grand Your glory and mastery are loved and their perception gives pleasure.

When we look at certain forms,

we can distinguish as human beings between what are the lovely forms, what a beautiful form

And from those which are the odd ones, why, because of completeness or lack thereof,

round cars, round watches round the architectures will very precise and metrical. Because we love complete things. And God is the most complete of all. So it takes every reason why you should love anything loving God, because he's perfect. He is the most beautiful,

he is the most beautiful from that perspective. He is the most beautiful,

and he has the perfect qualities which in love himself, makes him most worthy of love, in addition to being most benevolent to yourself, now this is true belief. And this is the highest level of worship by the way, when you when you worship God because you love him, because of who he is not because you want some something in return is transactional with God, the highest level is because you love Allah subhanho wa taala. And he deserves that worship because of how he is. And he says, the second cause of a powerful love is extensive knowledge of God which over masters the heart. This comes after the heart has been purified from all worldly distractions and connections as analogous

to sowing the sowing of seeds in an in the earth after it's been cleared of grace. Meaning, if you really want to have a pure love for God, then you have to remove the distractions of the world. The reason why we don't conceive of God in the ways I've just described, is because we're distracted from the world, we need to clear up like weeds take out the impurities and distractions from our lives before we can refill it with majestic and the powerful Allah subhanho wa taala.

And was connected to lovers of course, contentment, river, and he mentioned you know, Nixon has only mentioned in addition to love, rather

contentment, you're content, with with the love that you have, with the beloved with Allah subhanaw taala with the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with the Muslims because they're all in the same direction.

And if love is taken away, we all know what that feels like.

It's very painful. If you feel like a child of yours is lost, or your mother or your father has passed away. There's grief.

And so this is what I was referring to was grown longing, when you start longing for the beloved, and how to long for Allah subhanho wa taala.

And he talks about his seclusion, there's you should want one of the things to manifest love, is to want to be alone just to speak to Allah one Agia dua, supplication, and these kinds of things. And this is very powerful. Indeed.

And this actually increases your pain threshold, funnily enough, and this is something that he speaks about.

In fact, he mentioned

shortly for Belfie very beautiful quote, which I put on Twitter, in fact, he considers the reward for suffering has no desire to escape from it. When you know you're doing something for beloved for the one who is the most beloved, then it's one of the ultimate motivation and it gives you power, the lack of which there is nothing to substitute that kind of power. And this will give you like, a kind of, if we if we internalize these notions, I think we will transform our lives in a way which is

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