On Divine Love

The Remedy for Existential Angst and Ideological Whim

According to the Islamic scholastic tradition, the principle of love represents a potent antidot to the spiritual agitation and ideological ailments of the modern world. Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi proclaimed to the world through brilliant poetry that the only cure for pain is love—not transient love that succumbs to the passing of any worldly entity, but divine love that endures into eternity. Every soul yearns for this love in its deepest recesses, and only this love can cure the existential angst of the soul, given that the agony exists due to separation from God, the real beloved. Ideological substitutes for faith merely exacerbate the soul’s pain and eventually harm society, for such alternatives are born of whim and illusion. Rumi’s penetrating insight endows the human being with the means to transcend illusion, and his prescription emanates directly from the heart of Islam.

Contemplation of the essence of Islam reveals love as foundational to the religion and arguably its most intrinsic principle. In the fifth chapter of the Qur’an, God declares to believers that any of them who forsake the religion will be replaced with a people whose most salient description is love of the divine: Believers! If any of you should ever turn away from your faith, remember that Allah will raise up a people whom He loves, and who love Him; a people humble towards the believers, and firm towards the unbelievers; who will strive hard in the way of Allah and will not fear the reproach of the reproacher.” (5:54), “He loves, and who love Him”, a scriptural phrase that formed the basis of Muslim spiritual discourse for centuries. In addition, numerous Qur’anic verses characterize the righteous and obedient as those whom God loves, such as: “God loves people of spiritual excellence” (2:195, 3:134, 3:148, 5:13, 5:93); “God loves those who repent much, and He loves those who purify themselves” (2:222); “God loves those who fear Him” (3:76); “God loves the steadfast” (3:146); “God loves those who rely [on Him]” (3:159); and “God loves those who act justly” (60:8).

In a hadith related in Śaĥīĥ al-Bukhārī and Śaĥīĥ Muslim, God’s emissary ﷺ teaches that virtually the entire cosmos, by means of its angelic inhabitants, resonates with divine love: When God loves a servant, He summons Gabriel and says, “Verily, I love so-and-so, so love him.” Thus, Gabriel loves him, and he proclaims in the heavens, “Verily, God loves so-and-so, so love him.” Thus, all the celestials love him, and then those on earth are drawn to him. Another hadith related in Śaĥīĥ al-Bukhārī provides one of the most fundamental explanations of the religion in the entire hadith corpus, and it indicates that authentic religious experience is, as it were, dyed with the color of love. The Prophet Muĥammad ﷺ said that God states, Whoever shows animosity to a saint of Mine is someone against whom I declare war. My servant draws nigh to Me with nothing more beloved to Me than that which I have made obligatory upon him, and My servant continues to draw nigh to Me with supererogatory devotional acts until I love him. And when I love him, I become the hearing with which he hears, the sight with which he sees, the hand with which he seizes, and the foot with which he walks. When he asks of Me, I most certainly grant him, and when he seeks My refuge, I most certainly protect him. Here, the point of departure and overarching theme is sainthood, a rank so sublime that divine wrath awaits any who transgress against its folk. Naturally, one desires to know how to reach such a station. Therefore, the hadith proceeds with the path to that lofty destination: obedience to the divine command. Yet the language does not depict a dry and mechanical religious ethos; rather, devotional acts are “beloved” to God and open the doors of “drawing nigh” to Him. The teleological particle ĥattā (until) signifies a destination; steadfastness in devotion culminates with the quality most intrinsic to sainthood: love (“until I love him”). Thus, in Islam, love is the telos of all religious practice and its true animating force.

The prophetic description ends with God’s promise that all needs of saints will be fulfilled through their supplication. However, before this divine guarantee, the hadith characterizes the saint in a manner at once mysterious and bewildering: “And when I love him, I become the hearing with which he hears, the sight with which he sees...,” statements that denote a radical loss of identity on the part of the servant, who apparently can no longer identify with personal whim or ego but identifies only with the divine will and preference. Love of God, according to the prophetic tradition, annihilates one’s sense of identity in a way that can only be described as mystical. The saint becomes alienated from his ego and replete with the remembrance of God, to the extent that only the remembrance of God moves him to act. Therein lies the implication of God’s love for the saint, a direct consequence of “He loves them, and they love Him.” It also implies the saint’s love for God. Imam al-Ghazālī maintains that a full comprehension of the divine names revealed in the Qur’an requires the devotee not merely to understand and believe in them but to imitate them in an appropriate way and metaphorically “share” in their meanings—that is, to inculcate in oneself the human virtues that reflect the divine perfections. “ Moreover, love of God necessarily translates to benevolence and sincere empathy. In Al-Maqśad al-asnā (The most splendid aim), Imam al-Ghazālī lists the ninety-nine sublime names of God and, for each divine name, explains its meaning and describes the virtue one must cultivate to achieve its temporal reflection. Regarding the sublime name al-Wadūd (the supremely loving and kind), he states that a servant reflects that name by desiring for others what one desires for oneself. He continues, “The perfection of that virtue occurs when not even anger, hatred, and the harm he might receive can keep him from altruism and goodness. As the messenger of God—may God’s blessing and peace be upon him—said, when his tooth was broken and his face was struck and bloodied: ‘Lord, guide my people, for they do not know.’ Not even their actions prevented him from intending their good.”

Here, the point of departure and overarching theme is sainthood, a rank so sublime that divine wrath awaits any who transgress against its folk. Naturally, one desires to know how to reach such a station. Therefore, the hadith proceeds with the path to that lofty destination: obedience to the divine command. Yet the language does not depict a dry and mechanical religious ethos; rather, devotional acts are “beloved” to God and open the doors of “drawing nigh” to Him. The teleological particle ĥattā (until) signifies a destination; steadfastness in devotion culminates with the quality most intrinsic to sainthood: love (“until I love him”). Thus, in Islam, love is the telos of all religious practice and its true animating force. According to the Qur’an, authentic love of God entails emulation of the Prophet Muĥammad ﷺ and hence observance of the sacred law, which in turn opens the gates of divine love; “Say: If you truly love God, then follow me, and God shall love you and forgive your sins” (3:31).

 Allah ﷻ was the First and Last, the Manifest and the Hidden. Man shows his love for the Manifest by interactions with His manifestations that make up the phenomenal order of the world, a stage upon which the provisions of the Sacred Law are acted out. There was no real conflict between love of Allah ﷻ or other than Allah unless one took the manifestations themselves as the object or end of one’s love—not when they were a means to love Him who is Manifest in them through obeying His will, which included both loving certain manifestations, and striving against others. For the great saints of Islam, implementing the sacred law serves to express love and to deepen their perception of beauty. It paves the luminous path of attaining the everlasting love of God. In our age of angst and fury—when ennui, despair, and ideological whim infect so many minds and possess so many hearts—the remedy lies in faith and piety rooted in divine love.