❝There are four kinds of love, which we must differentiate between, and those who go astray do so because they do not make this distinction. — The first of them is love of Allah, but this alone is not sufficient to save a person from the punishment of Allah and to earn him His reward. The pagans, worshippers of the cross, Jews and others all love Allah. The second is love of that which Allah loves. This is what brings a person into Islam and out of disbelief. The most beloved of people to Allah is the one who is most correct and most devoted in this kind of love. The third kind is love for the sake of Allah, which is one of the essentials of loving that which Allah loves. A person’s love of that which Allah loves cannot be complete until he also loves for the sake of Allah. The fourth is love for something alongside Allah, and this love has to do with shirk (paganism). Everyone who loves things alongside Allah but not for the sake of Allah has taken that thing as a rival to Allah. This is the love of the pagans and those like them. There remains a fifth kind of love which has nothing to do with our topic; this is the natural love which is a person’s inclination towards that which suits his nature, such as the love of a thirsty person for water or of a hungry person for food, or the love of sleep, or of one’s wife and children. There is nothing wrong with this unless it distracts a person from remembering Allah and keeps him from loving Him. Allah says: “O you who believe! Let not your properties or your children divert you from the remembrance of Allah” [63:9] & “Men whom neither trade nor sale (business) diverts from the remembrance of Allah.” [24:37]❞ — Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751h) [Al-Jawaab al-Kaafi, 1/134]
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 05:45:28 +0000
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