Al-Huda
Foundation, NJ U. S. A
the Message Continues ... 7/138
Article 1 - Article 2 - Article 3 - Article 4 - Article 5 - Article 6 - Article 7 - Article 8 - Article 9 - Article 10 - Article 11 - Article 12
Divine Love
by Mahnaz Heydarpoor
(excerpted from the Author's Book: Perspectives on the Concept
of Love in Islam)
Love as the Highest Reason for Creation
In early kalam (Islamic theology), a heated debate started on
the purpose behind God's creations and acts. Some theologians
thought that the attribution of reason or purpose to His deeds
leads to the assumption that God is in need of His creatures and
He creates them to meet some needs, just like a human being who,
say, works to earn money, or studies to learn. However the
dominant view, especially among those who have had a more
rationalistic approach like Nasir ul‑Din al‑Tusi has always been
that God is the Wise (hakim), so whatever He does is for some
exactly and carefully pre‑studied purposes. He never does
something arbitrarily or in vain. It is asserted in the Qur'an
that, "What! Did you then think that We had created you in
vain...?" (23:115)
Of course, it is clear that God Himself does not gain anything
from His creatures, nor from His act of creation. This is not
only because He is completely free from any sort of need, but
also because it is logically impossible that a given effect
would have any type of influence on its (existential) cause.
Whatever the effect has is received from the cause and it would
be circular to suppose it otherwise. God has not created the
universe to make some benefits for Himself, but rather to give
benefits. A popular Persian poem says: "I have not created the
creation to get some benefits, I have created people to show
them my generosity."
There is a famous divine saying (hadith qudsi) which can
probably be found in all books written about the goal of
creation in Islam. According to this hadith, God says: "I was a
hidden treasure; I loved to be known. Hence I created the world
so that I would be known."(My translation) The Arabic original
term for "loved" is derived from the root hubb, which means to
like or to love. In other words, hubb is a general concept that
can belong to simple things such as preferring some types of
food (which in English could be translated as 'would like') or
to the most important things in one's life such as the intensive
desire for someone or some ideals as the beloved to the extent
that one might even be ready to be destroyed in order to please
the beloved or secure it. Hubb in such cases can be translated
into 'love'. There is another term in the Islamic culture which
is sometimes used in Arabic and more commonly in Persian to mean
the intensive love i.e. 'ishq. There is also wudd which means
mostly friendship and affection.
Thus, a question arises: why did God love to be known?
Certainly, God has no desire for fame. The purpose behind His
love to be known is understandable by considering the fact that
God who is the Wise, the Compassionate and the Omnipotent
creates the universe and particularly human beings to give them
the maximum grace and perfection that they have the capacity for
receiving. Of course, the perfection of any kind of being is
decided by the degree of its similarity or closeness to God, and
the most important factors in this are love of God, and prior to
that knowledge of God, since there can be no love without
knowing the beloved subject. [1]
Since the reason for loving something is nothing other than the
apprehension by the lover of the beauty and perfection or more
generally the goodness of the beloved, the greatest possible
love is certainly the love of God for Himself. God is the most
beautiful and the most perf ct being and His apprehension of
Himself is also the best apprehension, so His love for Himself
and His joy are the most intensive ones. Avicenna writes:
The necessarily existent (Wajib al‑wujud) that has the highest
perfection, beauty and brightness and perceives of Himself as so
with a complete perception ... is in Himself the greatest lover
and the greatest beloved and has the greatest joy ... [2]
Elsewhere he says:
The being that has the greatest joy in respect to something is
the First (al‑Awwal) in respect to Himself, since He has the
greatest understanding and has the greatest perfection. [3]
Sadr ud‑din al‑Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra and the founder of
the school of al‑hikmah almuta'aliyah, makes the same point:
What causes love is what is received or will be received from
the beloved. The higher goodness and more intensive existence
the more deserving for being loved and the greater love for
goodness. Now the being, which is free from potentiality and
contingency, due to its ultimate goodness, has the ultimate
level of being loved and the ultimate level of loving.
Therefore, His love for Himself is the most perfect love and the
most loyal one. [4]
He also adds that since God is the Simple (not compound, without
any parts) and Divine attributes are not additional (or
accidental) to His essence in existence (the idea which is
greatly accepted by Muslim philosophers and the majority of
theologians and known as the unity of His essence and His
attributes), His love is identical to His essence. In this way,
one can justifiably say that He is love as He is knowledge and
life.
God's love for the world in general, and human beings in
particular is unanimously believed and emphasised by all
Muslims. Indeed, one of the God's names is al‑Wadud, He who
loves. This is in addition to those names which imply His love
for creatures, such as al‑Rahman and al‑Rahim meaning the all‑Compassionate,
the all‑Merciful. Every chapter of the Qur'an except chapter 9
(which starts with verses about warning pagans) begins with the
phrase: "In the Name of God, the all‑Compassionate, the all‑Merciful".
Yet the number of repetition of this phrase in the Qur'an is
equal to the number of chapters i.e. 114, since in the chapter
27 this phrase occurs twice. It is noteworthy that although one
of the things attributed to God in Islam is the wrath (ghadab),
its application is much more limited compared to His
mercifulness and love for His creatures. Indeed, His wrath is
only for those who deliberately disbelieve or commit evil
actions. This is an idea that all Muslims agree and is clearly
expressed in many sources. I would like here just to mention
only one profound statement. In a well‑known prayer, Jushan al‑Kabir,
God is addressed as the one "whose mercy has preceded His
wrath".
As we will see later, this wrath or anger is also out of His
love and mercy. If His love or mercy did not exist He would not
care at all. It is like a father who becomes angry with his son
when he does something wrong, because he has care and concern
for his son and his entire family, because he wants his son to
correct his behaviour and set a lesson for other children not to
copy that wrong act.
God has different levels or degrees of love for His creatures.
One is His general and encompassing love that includes all
beings. If there were no such love nothing, would be brought
into being. This love includes even wrongdoers, since they also
manifest or represent some stages of goodness in their essence
and this is that aspect of their being which is loved by God,
though it might be overwhelmed by the demonic aspect of their
characters and therefore they might be overall hated.
A higher level of Divine love is His love for true believers,
those who believe in Him, the ultimate Truth and do good deeds.
Those are the people "He loves and who love Him" (5:54). In the
Qur'an, we find that God loves "the doers of justice" (5:42;
8:60; 9:49), "those who purify themselves" (9:108), "the pious"
(3:76; 9:4 & 7), "those who do good (to others)" (5:13 & 93;
3:134 & 148; 2:195) "those who trust (Him)" (4:35) "the patient"
(3:146) and "those who repent very much and purify themselves"
(2:222).
It is noteworthy that in the Qur'an in many cases God's
displeasure is described not by focusing on His hatred, but
rather indirectly by phrases, such as "God does not love any
ungrateful (or unbeliever) sinner" (2:276), "God does not love
the unjust" (3:57&1140), "surely, God does not love him who is
proud, boastful" (4:36) and "surely God does not love him who is
treacherous, sinful" (4:107).
According to Islam, the highest level of Divine love for any
creature is His love for perfect human beings, such as prophets.
The Prophet Muhammad has a special place in this regard. One of
the wellknown titles of him is Habib Ullah, which means the
beloved of God. In a famous Divine saying God addresses the
Prophet, "If thou were not, I would not have created the
heavens." As S.H. Nasr and many others have indicated, "Muslim
saints over the centuries have seen in the love of God for the
Prophet and in his love for God the prototype of all love
between man and his creator". [5]
Similar to what we saw earlier in the case of Divine love, human
love for God, for His creation, for good deeds, and for each
other plays a crucial role in the Islamic world‑view, especially
in theology, mysticism and ethics. Indeed, love for the truths
embodied in the religion builds up the faith. For Muslim
theologians, and indeed inspired by the Qur'an, although faith
is based on knowledge of the religious facts, it is not
reducible to that knowledge. There might be people who have
knowledge of the religious facts and are confident about them
but still do not commit themselves to any faith. The faith and
belief only come when a person voluntarily commits himself to
acceptance of articles of faith and does not refuse to follow
them. In other words, the faith is there only when one loves the
religious beliefs and not just when one comes to know them. The
Qur'an says:
And they denied them (Divine signs or miracles) unjustly and
proudly while their soul had been certain about it. (27:14)
The prototype example of those who know very well but refuse to
practice what they have known is Iblis, the great Satan.
According to Islamic sources, Iblis does whatever he does out of
arrogance and selfishness, not out of ignorance.
Thus, a person becomes faithful and a believer only when he has
respect and love for certain facts i.e. articles of faith. We
read in a famous hadith that the Prophet Muhammad asked his
companions of "the firmest handhold of faith". They suggested
different things like prayer and hajj. When they could not give
the appropriate answer the Prophet said:
The firmest handhold of faith is to love for the sake of God and
to hate for the sake of God, to befriend God's friends and to
renounce His enemies. [6]
The same idea is emphasised by Imams of the Household of the
Prophet. For example, Fudayl ibn Yasar, a disciple, asked Imam
Sadiq whether love and hatred derive from faith. Imam replied:
"Is faith anything but love and hate?" [7] The same hadith is
narrated from Imam Baqir. It is also narrated that Imam Baqir
said: "The faith is love and love is the faith." [8]
Notes:
[1] It has to be noted that Muslim mystics usually speak of
manifestation (tajalli) rather than creation (khalq).
[2] Avicenna, 1956, p.369
[3] Avicenna, 1375 A.H., Vol. 3, p.359
[4] al Shirazi, 1378 A.H., Vol. 2, p.274
[5] Nasr, 1989, p. 321
[6] al‑Kulayni, 1397 A.H., Kitab al‑Iman wal‑Kufr, "Bab al‑Hubb
fi Allah wal‑Bughd fi Allah", no. 6, p.126.
[7] Ibid., no. 5 , p. 125.
[8] Al‑Majlisi, 1983, Kitab al‑Iman wal‑Kufr, "Bab alHubb fi
Allah wal‑Bughd fi Allah", lxvi, p. 238.
HOME - NEWSLETTERS - BOOKS - ARTICLES - CONTACT - FEEDBACK - UP
DISCLAIMER:
All material published by Al-Huda.com / And the Message Continues is the sole responsibility of its author's).
The opinions and/or assertions contained therein do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of this site,
nor of Al-Huda and its officers.