Love in Islam

Abstract

Muslims believe that the Qur'an, the Holy book of Islam, is literally, the word of God. Hence, the Word was made book. The Qur'an in Islamic thought is comparable to the Torah in the Jewish tradition and to Jesus in the Christian tradition, in the sense that each is perceived by its followers as the central revelation of God. The Qur'an is neither a book of legal codes, nor systematic theology, nor a book on ethical morality per se. The Qur'an is basically a book of faith from which we, as Muslims, should derive laws, ethics and the theology we need in order to define the type of human and society God wants us to be. From the Qur'an we should be able to define the ethical theology which would hopefully explain the meaning and purpose of this life. As such, the Qur'an for Muslims is the primary means of encountering God. We are told in the Qur'an that God is incomparable to anything (42:11). But in order that humans may comprehend some of what God is, He describes himself in the Qur'an in ninety-nine different ways, or attributes of Himself. Each of these ninety-nine names of God, as they are called, describes a human characteristic. Yet He makes it clear that we should never presume that these ninety-nine attributes describe all that God is. These are but that part of Him He wanted us to know. We should also understand that the human characteristics related to His attributes are of a limited nature. His attributes are the ultimate of our characteristics. His justice cannot be compared to our understanding of what justice is, neither can His generosity, anger, revenge, kindness, mercy or love. By relating us to Him, through his attributes, God is telling us that, in a sense, we are part of Him, because He is all, and because He encompasses everything. What concerns us here, however, is the attribute or the name the Loving, AlWadud , Al-Muhib. Muslims believes that God is so loving that He recreated His attribute of love as an instinct in us. Hence true love is part of God's love, and it is our duty to love one another truly, as indeed He loves us. Without Divine Love there can be no human love. The Qur'an tells us that the path of true love has to be through God. The Qur'an was revealed in the Arabic Language, which is famed for its rich terminology. There are over sixty words in Arabic used to describe love