The love of Allah has been made obligatory on believers. However, while many people find it easy to express the love verbally, their actions do not reflect that love for Him. Or how can we claim to love Allah when we take what He has revealed lightly, don’t follow his commands, and fail to make our behaviours reflect what pleases Him?
Many times we find that love missing from our hearts because our hearts are filled instead with doubts, vain desires, and temptations of temporal life. As Ibn Taymiyyah stated in one of his books, Diseases of the Heart, one of the reasons for this has to do with the lack of right knowledge.
To counter doubts, therefore, we need to strengthen our beliefs, and we need a better overall spiritual perspective in order to counter desires and temptations. We also need to clear those doubts that hinder the instilling of that love for Allah by learning more and asking questions.
One of the hadiths, shows the prophet getting angry with a group of people for taking a decision that resulted in someone unnecessarily losing his life. On that, the prophet said, “Could they not have asked if they didn’t know? Indeed, the cure for ignorance is to ask.” [Sunan Ibn Majah Hasan].
Our actions come out short and empty when we don’t make that effort and don’t plant that love in our hearts thereby risking His anger, which makes our deeds fruitless. Allah says in the Quran:
“That is because they followed that which angered Allah, and hated that which pleased Him. So He made their deeds fruitless” (Surah Muhammad:28).
What do we have to do specifically to love Allah?
In considering the companions of the Prophet who used to say that, “We love Allah,” and to provide them a yardstick to know whether they indeed loved Allah, Allah revealed the following verse:
“Say (O Muhammad SAW to mankind): “If you (really) love Allah ,then follow me (i.e. accept Islamic Monotheism, follow the Quran and the Sunnah), Allah will love you and forgive you of your sins. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surah Aal-e-Imran:31)
What pulls us away from loving Allah?
To properly answer this question, we need to search deep within our souls about the motivations that drive our lives and our understanding (explicit or implicit) of the purpose of our lives. That is because the purpose of our life drives our goals, actions, and behaviour in general.
For many of us, earning a living tends to be the focal point of our lives, including a total immersion in building our dwellings, families, and so on while neglecting our duty and love for Allah. The time that we spend on various activities reflects our priority and love for each of those activities. For those of us who exhibit that behaviour, Allah says the following:
“Say: If it be that your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your mates, or your kindred; the wealth that you have gained; the commerce in which you fear a decline: or the dwellings in which you (seek) delight – are dearer to you than Allah, or His Messenger, or the striving in His cause; then wait until Allah brings about His decision: and Allah guides not the rebellious” (Sura At-Taubah: 24).
We can, therefore, infer that while we do have an obligation to attend to our responsibilities, it should not divert us from building our relationship with Allah.
As He says in the Quran:
“Let not your properties or your children divert you from the remembrance of Allah. And whosoever does that, they are the losers” (Al-Munafiqoon 63:9).
Love of Allah triggers sweetness of faith
The prophet had said as narrated in both Sahih hadith, “Whoever possesses the following three qualities will taste the sweetness (delight) of faith: the one to whom Alláh and His Messenger become dearer than anything else, the one who loves a person and he loves him only for Alláh’s sake, and whoever hates to revert to disbelief, after Alláh has saved him from it, as he hates to be thrown into the Fire.”
Love of Allah can keep us away from sins
Today, when the hearts of most of us are filled with lust, desires, temptations and fantasies, we need to remind ourselves that it is not possible to have those take room in the same heart where we want to plant our love for Allah. Always ask yourself whether what lives in your heart makes you neglect Allah, and is worth more than the love of Allah? When we start replacing the lust, desires, and fantasies that live in our heart with Allah’s love, then we will see ourselves regain ing that love for Allah.
Ibn Taymiyyah said, “The more the servant loves his Master, the less will he love other objects and they will decrease in number. The less the servant loves his Master, the more will he love other objects and they will increase in number (Majmu Fatawa [1/94).
Let us, therefore, take stock of how much we love this life’s objects versus how much we love Allah and His Prophet.
Love of Allah stimulates our emotions
The vagaries of life generate emotions and must be channeled appropriately to retain our positive mental states. No matter how we express and channel those emotions to various people in life, there are emotions trapped in our system that we simply can’t express with an open heart to even the most beloved of His creations. But it is different with our creator. When we do succeed in planting that love for Allah in our hearts and build that relationship, it can make our repressed emotions pour out with a pleasing force.
The relationship that we established with our creator out of that love for Him and His love for us can make us say what is in our hearts, complain about our situations, express profuse apologies, and so on – all without worrying about demeaning ourselves because He is our creator and sustainer. In fact, what we humans go through and what manifests as hidden emotions can come flooding back when we sit in front of our creator with that love for Him.
This can help us in reconciling matters within ourselves and, most important of all, lets Allah respond and listen to us. Thus, the more we love Allah, the better we will be able to engage with Him at this level and the better we will be able to feel and expect his mercy in return.
When we love Allah, He will put our love in others’ hearts
Many of us make a lot of effort to gain the love and pleasure of others and sometimes we may do that at the expense of disobeying Allah’s commands. We should realise that such tactics are short lived (even if achieved) and earn us nothing but Allah’s displeasure. On the other hand, if we focus on planting Allah’s love, then we will not only get His love but He will instill our love in others’ hearts as well. Allah says in the Quran:
“Verily, those who believe in the Oneness of Allah and in His Messenger (Muhammad SAW)] and work deeds of righteousness, the Most Gracious (Allah) will bestow love for them (in the hearts of the believers)” (Surah Maryam: 96).
