Tawhid & Love

“Tawhid alerts us to the fact that there can be no true lover and no true beloved but God.” 

“So, there is no lover but God, and He loves them, that is, human beings created in His “form,” for they are the Self-Disclosures of His Most Beautiful Names. And there is no beloved but God, which is to say that human beings love God and God alone, whether they know it or not. This is because no one is beautiful but God; so all love is attracted to His Beauty.” 

“The objects of love are gold-plated by God’s Attributes. People should strive to recognize that it is not these objects per se that they love, but God.” ~ Rumi ~

“No one loves anyone but his own Creator, but he is veiled from Him by love for Zaynab, Suʿād, Hind, Laylā, this world, money, position, and everything loved in the world. Poets exhaust their words on all these existing things, but they do not know. The gnostics [i.e., those who “recognize” themselves and God] never hear a verse, a riddle, a panegyric, or a love poem that is not about God, hidden beyond the veil of forms.” ~ Ibn Arabi ~

“The most explicit reference to union with God in the earliest Islamic sources is probably the sound ḥadīth qudsī in which God speaks of the servant who seeks nearness to Him through good works. When the servant advances on the path, then, God says, “I love him, and when I love him, I am the hearing with which he hears, the eyesight with which he sees, the hand with which he grasps, and the foot with which he walks.” This ḥadīth has been the subject of endless explication in Sufi texts, for it describes in concrete terms the fruit of He loves them. But they love Him also plays a basic role: the servants’ love for God drives them to follow the path of guidance. If their love were to be misguided, then they would be attracted to the gold plating rather than to God; so they would not advance on the path. To advance they must act beautifully and virtuously (iḥsān) and come to be characterized by beautiful character traits. The only way to accomplish this is to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet. The Prophet is instructed, Say, “If you love God, follow me, and God will love you” (3:31). When God does love us, then He will be the hearing with which we hear, the eyes with which we see, and the heart with which we love.” 

“Specifically, it says that God loves the beautiful-doers (those who have iḥsān, in five verses), the God-fearing (three verses), the just (two), the self-purifiers (two), the repentant, the patient, and those who trust in Him. It also says that there are people whom God does not love: unbelievers, wrongdoers, workers of corruption, transgressors, and those who are immoderate, proud, and boastful. In other words, the Quran tells us that God has a special love for those who choose to follow His ways, and this love is not exactly the same as the love that brought the universe into existence. The ways of God followed by those whom He loves are encapsulated in the beautiful example (33:21) and exalted character of the Prophet.” 

“To be fully human demands actualizing and realizing the meaning of tawḥīd in the depths of the heart.” 

~ The Qur’an and Sufism by William C. Chittick, in The Study Quran ~