Reaching Love Itself

Romantic Love in Islam 

This hub discourses a few of the argues why a few would call Islam the religion of love itself. "Whoever’s love for us additions, his love for women must also addition," and, "Whenever a person’s love for women additions, his faith also additions." 

Romantic Love in Islamic Literature 

Being a process the theoretical and practical expressions of Islamic romantic love as experienced in 11th century Cordova, Spain, it delineates the fundamentals of love, its causes, symptoms, accomplishments, frustrations, and dangers. Ibn Hazm stresses that “Love is neither disapproved by Religion, nor prohibited by the Law; for every heart is in God’s hands. Ibn Dawud talked about human love (‘ishq) as a disease for which doctors have no cure. 

Martyrs of Romantic Love in Islam 

The Prophetic custom about the martyrs of love says, “He who loves and remains pure and hides his secret and dies, dies a martyr.” The Calamities of the Slain Lovers talks about the honor of those who loved passionately and continued pure through several chapters as well as accounts of those whom love (‘ishq) killed. 

Romantic Love in Sufism 

“If the language of love makes no impression on you, you are as good as dead,” said the supreme Persian love poet Sa’di of Shiraz. Among other great Sufi proponents of this mystical interpreting of romantic love were Ahmad al-Ghazali (Sawanih al-’ushshaq or The Lovers’ goes through), Ruzbihan Baqli (‘Abhar al-ashiqin or Jasmine of the Lovers), and Awhad al-Din Kirmani. Ibn ‘Arabi's romantic love poetry, called The representative of Desires, was offered to a young and wise Isfahani girl, Nizam, a kind of celestial eternal Feminine, the shape of divine love and beauty for the poet. 'Attar of Nishapur describes the overwhelming power of romantic love in his group discussion of the Birds by telling the story of a venerable old Sufi master who fell in love with a Christian girl, burned up the Qur’an, drank wine, herded her pigs, and became an apostate to Islam in pursuit of “the religion of love.” 

Love and hate 

For example, if justice is to be loved injustice should be hated. One has to love for the sake of God and hate for the sake of God. Certainly Islam recommends Muslims to love people and optimise compassionate and sincere relationship with them, even if they do not believe in Islam or in God. There are fair people and despotic people. Of course, in Islam love is universal and the Prophet of Islam was not sent, "save as a mercy unto all beings" (The Qur'an 21: 107). According to Islam, love has to be enlightened. A sacred love is the love which is realistic and insightful. The reason for this emphasise is that love naturally tends to make the lover "blind and deaf'. If you love some one it is very unlikely to have an impartial view of it, unless the love is directed by the reason. This is why even Sufi Muslims try not to be overwhelmed by love. According to Islam, the minimum expectation from believers is that God should have the first place in their heart, in the sense that no other love may override one's love for God; God should be the highest and foremost object of love. The Qur'an says: This verse clearly indicates that one's love for God has to be superior to one's love for whatever else that one may come to love in one's life. This superiority shows itself when the love for God and for His religion comes in conflict with one's love for one's personal belongings. A believer is the person whose love for God is the highest and strongest love he has. Elsewhere, the Qur'an says: 

Yet there are some people who adopt rivals instead of God, whom they love even as they (should) love God. Those who believe are firmer in their love of God ... (2:165) 

Why should one love God? According to Islam, one reason for loving God lies in the fact that God is the most precious, the most perfect and the most beautiful being, that a man can ever conceive and therefore, man out of his nature that aspires to values, beauty and perfection loves God. 

Many Islamic scholars, especially mystics have asserted that everybody feels in his heart a great love for God the Almighty without necessarily being aware of it. The Qur'an says: "O man! Others might take political power as their god, and so on. The Qur'an says: 

"Have you seen him who takes his low desires for his god?" (25:43; 45:23) 

"Nothing other than God has been ever loved. It is God who has manifested Himself in whatever is beloved for the eyes of those who love. There is no being except that it loves. God, the most High, says (in the Qur'an): `and your Lord has commanded not to worship but Him.'No one has ever loved anything other than his Creator. The other reason for loving God is to reciprocate His love and blessings. Love God because He has done good to you and He has bestowed favours upon you. [12] 

According to Islamic narrations, God said to both Moses and David: "Love me and endear Me to my people." My God, The uninterrupted flow of Thy graciousness has distracted me from thanking Thee!

Although God's love for His servants is not arbitrary and depends on their merits, His love for offenders and who have turned their back to Him is so great that it highly outdoes their expectation. On those who repent and believe and do good deeds, the Qur'an says:"... these are they of whom God changes the evil deeds to good ones; and God is Forgiving, Merciful." (25:70). God returns to such handmaidens and then they repent and bring back to Him, and then God brings back to them to forgive them. According to Islamic mysticism, one's cognition of God as the most beautiful and perfect being and the source of all good things that one has and successively one's love for God who is love and mercy gets so accented and covering that it will occupy all one's heart. Servitude to God is a substance, whose essence is lordship. [16] The service and worship of God The most elect?as God has said: (the Qur'an, 51:56) At last comes Love which ousts all else: Love undoes all sense of `two'; Love makes all One, Suhrawardi in his On the Reality of Love elaborates his view on the spiritual journey. Suhrawardi believes that knowledge of the self leads to the discovery that the self is divine and this results in loving God and having Sufi experiences. According to Islam, love for God is very active and manifests itself in all aspects of one's life. It shapes all one's love and hatred. My servant constantly gets close to me by nawafil till I love him. Imam Jafar al?Sadiq said: "Do you disobey God and pretend you love Him? [21] We read in the Qur'an: Whoever from among you turns back from his religion, then God will bring a people, He shall love them and they shall love Him, lowly before the believers, mighty against the unbelievers, they shall strive hard in God's way and shall not fear the censure of any censurer. (5:54) The history of Islam is full of memories of those who embodied a sincere and overwhelming love for God and His religion. Keep thy belief hidden. He (God) knows (all) secrets: conceal thy desire. " Love is the All?subduer, and I am subdued by Love: By Love's blindness I have been made bright like the sun. A believer who loves God is expected to love His people and be kind to them. O servant of God, let your love and hate be for the sake of God, because no one can attain to the wilayah (guardianship) of God without that, and no one shall find the taste of faith without that, though his prayers and fast be great in number. [23] If one's love and hate are to be only for the sake of, it would be impossible not to love His people. Then God will. God Himself is love and has created the world out of love. He treats human beings with love. Faith also starts with love, an overwhelming love for certain truths and is required to flourish by the nourishment of this love to the extent that one's love for God fills all parts of one's heart and directs all aspects of one's life. One's love for God can increase only when one reduces one's selfishness and if one can ultimately get rid of selfishness and I?ness one will be a perfect man whose will and pleasure would be the will and pleasure of God. Love for God and freedom from selfishness can be secured at first by sacrifice and losing one's desires for the sake of God, and His people and then by having no desire other than what He desires and no will other than His. 

[12] al-­Daylami, 1370 A.H., p.226; my translation
[16] Mizan al ­Hikmah, Vol. 6, p. 13, no. 11317
[21] Cited from Mutahhari, 1985, Ch. 6.
[23] (Majlisi, 1983, Vol. 27, p. 54)

Source: 

http://haunty.hubpages.com/hub/Romantic-Love-in-Islam

http://www.al-islam.org/love_in_islam/3.htm

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