LOVE AND ATTACHMENT

Know, 0 dear readers, that love of God is the last stage and the highest in rank. There is no higher stage after acquisition of love God. Before it, there are the stages of repentance, patience and renunciation. These are preliminaries to love of God. Though it is difficult to enter the region of love, it is possible for human mind to be filled up with God's love as a result of firm faith. To believe in God's love is difficult, even some learned men thought it impossible. They say that it means to be engaged in divine worship. They say that Love grows for a being of equal status and hence God's love is impossible.

PROOF OF SHARIAT ABOUT LOVE OF GOD

Know 0 readers, that all the Ulemas or learned men are unanimous that love of God and His Apostle is compulsory. If there is no existence of such love, how is it compulsory ? To obey injunctions is the fruit of love but the birth of the tree of love is necessary before getting fruit. God says : He loves them and they love Him-5 :54. God says : Those who are believers love God much. These verses say that love of God is possible. The Prophet in many traditions made love of God a condition of faith.

(1) Abu Razia Ukaili once asked the Prophet : 0 Messenger of God, what is faith ? He said : The meaning of faith is your love for God and His Apostle more than your love for every other thing.

(2) In another tradition, the Prophet said that no man can be a believer until God and His Apostle become dearer to him than his family members, riches and all mankind (in another narration than his own life.)

(3) Why should it not be when God said in the following verse : Say, are your parents, your children, your brethren, your 4:2454:246wives, your relatives, the property you have acquired, the business the loss of which you fear and the houses which give pleasure to you dearer to you than God and His Apostle and Jihad in the way of God-9:24? It was said by way of warning.

(4) The Prophet said: Love God for the provision He gave you. Love me also as God loves me.

(5) It is reported that a man 'said to the Prophet: I love you. The Prophet said : Then be prepared for poverty. The man said : I love God. The Prophet said : Then be prepared for disasters.

(6) Hazrat Omar said : Once Mosab-bin-Omair came to h Prophet being covered with sheep cloth. The Prophet said : L k to the man God has illumined his heart. I see that his pare,ts maintained him with good food and drink. Love of God and His Apostle attracted towards what you see in him.

(7) There is in a famous Hadis that when the angel of death came to Abraham to take his life he told him : Have you every seen a friend taking away the life of a friend ? Then God revealed to him : Have you ever seen a friend displeased with meeting with his friend ? Abraham said : 0 angel of death, now take away my life. This love is found in such a person who loves God with his whole heart.

(8) Our Prophet used to say in his invocation : 0 God. I want Thy love, the love of one who loves Thee, the love of that thing which brings near Thy love. Make Thy love dearer to me than cold drink.

(9) Once a desert Arab came to the Prophet and asked Whee will the the Resurrection occur ? He said : What preparation have you made for that ? He said.: I have not prepared for it with much of prayer and fasting but I love God and His Prophet. The Prophet said : He who loves one will be with him. Hazrat Anas said : It pleased the Muslims so much that I did not find them more pleased after Islam than this.

(10) Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq said : The taste of sincere love which a man finds for God keeps him away from searching the world and away from all the people.

(11) Hazrat Hasan Basri said : He who recognised God, loves Him. He who recognised the world adopts renunciation. A believer can not rest contented unless he is heedless. When he thinks, he becomes sorry.

(12) Hazrat Abu Solaiman Darani said : There are people among the creation of God whom Paradise and the pleasures there can not keep engaged. So how can the world keep them engaged?

(13) It is reported that Jesus Christ was passing once by three men whose bodies became stricken with fear of God. He asked them "What is the reason of the change that I see in you?" They said "Fear of Hell." He said : You have got claim over God that He will give security to those who fear God. Thereafter Jesus Christ passed by another three men and found them still more stricken with fear of God. He asked : What is the reason of this condition of yours ? They said: We fear the Almighty and Glorious God. He said : You are near God, you are near God, your are near God.

(14) Hazrat Abdul Wahed bin Jayed said : I was passing by a man and asked him : Don't you feel the coldness of snow ? He said : He does not feel the coldness of snow whom God's love keeps engaged.

(15) The sage Sarri Sakti said : On the Resurrection day all the Prophets will be called with their followers. Then they will be called : 0 followers of Moses. 0 followers of Jesus. 0 followers of Muhammad. The lovers of God will not be called, as they will be addressed thus.: 0 friends of God, come toMe Then their hearts will be filled up with joy.

(16) Hazrat Haram-bin Hasan said: When a believer recognises his God, he loves Him. When he loves Him, he advances towards Him. When he feels the taste of advancing towards Him, he does not look to the world with the eye of attachment and to the next world with the eye of pleasure. That keeps him sad in this world and gives him joy in the next world.

(17) There is written in a certain religious scripture : 4 My servant, by; My oath, My duty to you is to love you. So yourduty is to love Me.

(18) Ihya-bin-Muaz said : Love of God even to the measure of a mustard seed is dearer to me than divine services for seventy years without love.

4:247(19) Hazrat Ihya-bin-Muaz said : 0 God, I am a lover. I wish to live with Thee. Every lover wants to live with his beloved. So how can I keep away from Thee?

WHAT IS LOVE AND ITS CAUSES?

1. First basis of love. Without acquaintance and understanding, love does not take form, as man does not love one with whom he is not acquainted. For this reason, he does not love a lifeless thing, rather he can love one who has got life and understanding. There are three classes of wisdom or understanding. (1) Mind likes a thing congenial to nature. (2) Mind hates a thing opposed to nature. (3) Mind hates what is injurious and pains giving. So love means attraction of mind to what is tasteful and pleasure giving. When it is strong and firm, there is deep love.

2. Second basis of love. It is that when it comes after knowledge and acquaintance, it is divided into several divisions from the stand point of knowledge and five senses every sense is satisfied with that thing over which it has got power and influence. Eye is satisfied with beautiful things, ear is satisfied with sweet sounds and songs, nose is satisfied with sweet scent and smell, tongue is satisfied with delicious foods, hand is satisfied with smooth touch. The object for which each sense finds delight is dear to it. The Prophet said : Three things of your world is dear to mesweet scent, wife, and prayer which has been made doll to my eyes. It appears from the above Hadis that prayer is not within the five senses but it is included within the sixth sense of soul. He who has got no heart can not grasp it. Man and beast are equal in the happiness of the five senses. If love of God is considered as appertaining to those five senses, then it is impossible to love Him. The sixth sense is intellect, light, heart, mind or soul. The inner eye is more powerful than the external eye and.the mind's eye is more powerful than the external eye. The beauty which can be perceived through intellect is more than that of eye sight. As the beauties of the world appear pleasing to the external eye, the sight of the existence of God and the beauties of His creation are thousand and thousand times more pleasing to him. So love of God can not be denied,. but he who has not crossed the limit of a beast can not perceive it.

4:248(3) Third basis of love. It is the following. He who loves himself loves another for himself. Every living being loves his life. That means that he has got in his very nature an attachment to live and dislike for death. Man wants that he should live for ever and that his qualities should gain perfection. Nobody wants his destruction and loss of his qualities. So there are several causes of love.

(1) The first cause of love is that a man loves his life, then his limbs, then his properties, children, relatives and friends. Man does not love these things only for them, but for the fact they they help towards his long life and attainment of perfection. Even after his death, he wants to live through his heirs.

(2) The second cause of love is getting benefit. A man loves one from whom he gets benefit as he is a servant of benefits. The Prophet said : 0 God, don't allow a sinner to do good to me, as my mind may wish to love him. This shows that mind turns towards the benefactor. There is difference between love for health and love for a physician. Physician is the cause of health and therefore for the sake of health, a physician is loved. Similarly education is loved and also the teacher of education, but education is loved for itself and teacher is loved as he is the cause of education. Similarly food and drink and money are loved, but the former two are loved for themselves and the third is loved as it is the instrument of getting food and drink.

(3) The third cause of love is to love a thing for its quality and not for the thing itself. A good figure is loved for its beauty. Even the Prophet said: God is beautiful and He loves beauty.

(4) The fourth cause of love is acquaintance with beauty. The external eye appreciates external beauty. A man is beautiful when all his organs are proportionately beautiful. When his organs are not such, he cannot be called beautiful even though his colour is white. This is called acquaintance with beauty. So to get acquainted with perfection is a cause for love.

Question. The matters described above are objects of five external sense organs. Can beauty be appreciated other than by external five senses ?

Answer. It can be realised. Many a time colourless and figureless things are called beautiful, such as conduct of that man 4:249is beautiful, knowledge of that man is beautiful character of that man is beautiful. The meaning of good conduct is that his knowledge, courage, God-fear, generosity, gentlemanliness and other qualities are beautiful. Most of those qualities can be guessed not by external organs but by inner light. These conducts and attributes are objects of love and the man possessing these qualities is loved. People love the Prophets, saints and founders of sects for their qualities though they did not see them. Love reaches to such high pitch that the lovers are ready sometimes to dedicate their lives and properties'for them. These internal qualities are divided into two kinds-knowledge and power. All qualities grow out of these two qualities which can not be gained by external senses. A man possesses two things, external figure and internal nature. External eye sees the beauty of external figure but the internal secret nature is seen by the internal eye. He who is deprived of this secret eye can not see the secret beauty and hence does not love it. He whose secret eye is strong can see the internal secret beauties.

(5) The fifth cause of love is secret connection between a lover and his beloved. Many a time love is cemented between them not for their beauty but for the union of their souls. The Prophet said : Out of them, love grows among those who have got similarity of souls.

So it appears from what has been described above that there are five cause's of love.

(1) A man loves his life, his perfection and his living long. (2) He loves one who helps him in his livelihood. (3) He loves one who does good to the people.

(4) He loves one who has got external and internal beauty. (5) He love one who has got secret connection with him.

If these qualities are found in one person, love for him is increased manifold. Power of love increases in proportion to the increase of those qualities in a man. If these qualities find full perfection in a man, lovq gains perfection.

ONLY GOD IS OBJECT OF LOVE: He who loves other than God has not recognised God. His ignorance about God is responsible for this. The Prophet is an object of love as he is the 4:250beloved of God. So is the love for the learned, religious men and good people, as the dear ones of the beloved are objects of love. The ambassadors and the messengers of the dear ones are also objects of love. He who loves the dear ones is also an object of love. The those whose eye of knowledge has been opened, God is the only object of love. There is no object of love than He. The five causes of love are only found in God and not in any other being.

The following are the causes that prove that nothing should be the object of love except God.

(1) First cause. Man loves himself, his life his progress and his living long and dislikes his destruction, death and impediments to progress. For this reason love of God is necessary as he who knows himself and knows God knows this fact that he has got no existence of his own and that his existence, destruction, progress and everything are gifts from God and that he will return to God and live with Him. He gives his life and He takes his life. He gives him perfection and created causes or ingredients to give him perfection and created guidance for the use of these causes. The life of a man has got no existence of its own. If God had not kept his existence, he would not have been a thing at all. Had God not kept him alive, he would have been destroyed even after coming into existence. Only God is ever-living and ever-lasting. He exists by Himself and things other than God exist only through His grace and mercy. The man who loves himself should necessarily love one for whose cause he came into existence and for whom his existence becomes lasting. This knowledge is necessary as without this knowledge there can be no love. The stronger the knowledge, the stronger the love. For this reason, Hasan Basri said : He who recognised his Lord, loves Him. He who recognised the world has adopted renunciation. How is it that man should love himself, but not love his Lord for whose cause he came into being ? It is seen that one sun burnt person loves shade but he loves also the tree that gives shade. Everything receiving power from God is like the shade of a tree or rays of the sun. As the existence of shade comes from the tree, so one's body, bodily organs and all his attributes and power come from God. In this condition, it is abominable to love oneself without loving his source God. He who does not know that he comes from God, can not love God. For this reason, the fools can not love God. Everything is the fruit or expression of 4:251His power and every being come from His being just as the existence of rays comes from the existence of the sun. It is very clear to the experts of soul, more clear than eye sight that when the physical body and the sun are united, light comes out from the power of God as the rays of the sun eye, figure come from the power of God. He who is near God is like angels. The more a man is near the angels, the more is his insight in the world; and the more he is near the world the more is his defects.