Maḥabbat (love) is said to be derived from ḥibbat, which are seeds that fall to the earth in the desert. The name ḥubb (love) was given to such desert seeds (ḥibb), because love is the source of life just as seeds are the origin of plants. As, when the seeds are scattered in the desert, they become hidden in the earth, and rain falls upon them and the sun shines upon them and cold and heat pass over them, yet they are not corrupted by the changing seasons, but grow up and bear flowers and give fruit, so love, when it takes its dwelling in the heart, is not corrupted by presence or absence, by pleasure or pain, by separation or union. Others say that maḥabbat is derived from ḥubb, meaning “a jar full of stagnant water”, because when love is collected in the heart and fills it, there is no room there for any thought except of the beloved, as Shiblí says: “Love is called maḥabbat because it obliterates (tamḥú) from the heart everything except the beloved.” Others say that maḥabbat is derived from ḥubb, meaning “the four conjoined pieces of wood on which a water-jug is placed, because a lover lightly bears whatever his beloved metes out to him—honour or disgrace, pain or pleasure, fair treatment or foul”. According to others, maḥabbat is derived from ḥabb, the plural of ḥabbat, and ḥabbat is the core of the heart, where love resides. In this case, maḥabbat is called by the name of its dwelling-place, a principle of which there are numerous examples in Arabic. Others derive it from ḥabáb, “bubbles of water and the effervescence thereof in a heavy rainfall,” because love is the effervescence of the heart in longing for union with the beloved. As the body subsists through the spirit, so the heart subsists through love, and love subsists through vision of, and union with, the beloved. Others, again, declare that ḥubb is a name applied to pure love, because the Arabs call the pure white of the human eye ḥabbat al-insán, just as they call the pure black (core) of the heart ḥabbat al-qalb: the latter is the seat of love, the former of vision. Hence the heart and the eye are rivals in love, as the poet says:
“My heart envies mine eye the pleasure of seeing,
And mine eye envies my heart the pleasure of meditating.”
Section.
You must know that the term “love” (maḥabbat) is used by theologians in three significations. Firstly, as meaning restless desire for the object of love, and inclination and passion, in which sense it refers only to created beings and their mutual affection towards one another, but cannot be applied to God, who is exalted far above anything of this sort. Secondly, as meaning God’s beneficence and His conferment of special privileges on those whom He chooses and causes to attain the perfection of saintship and peculiarly distinguishes by diverse kinds of His miraculous grace. Thirdly, as meaning praise which God bestows on a man for a good action (thaná-yi jamíl).[[155]]
Some scholastic philosophers say that God’s love, which He has made known to us, belongs to those traditional attributes, like His face and His hand and His settling Himself firmly on His throne (istiwá), of which the existence from the standpoint of reason would appear to be impossible if they had not been proclaimed as Divine attributes in the Koran and the Sunna. Therefore we affirm them and believe in them, but suspend our own judgment concerning them. These scholastics mean to deny that the term “love” can be applied to God in all the senses which I have mentioned. I will now explain to you the truth of this matter.
God’s love of Man is His good will towards him and His having mercy on him. Love is one of the names of His will (irádat), like “satisfaction”, “anger”, “mercy”, etc., and His will is an eternal attribute whereby He wills His actions. In short, God’s love towards Man consists in showing much favour to him, and giving him a recompense in this world and the next, and making him secure from punishment and keeping him safe from sin, and bestowing on him lofty “states” and exalted “stations” and causing him to turn his thoughts away from all that is other than God. When God peculiarly distinguishes anyone in this way, that specialization of His will is called love. This is the doctrine of Ḥárith Muḥásibí and Junayd and a large number of the Ṣúfí Shaykhs as well as of the lawyers belonging to both the sects; and most of the Sunní scholastics hold the same opinion. As regards their assertion that Divine love is “praise given to a man for a good action” (thaná-yi jamíl bar banda), God’s praise is His word (kalám), which is uncreated; and as regards their assertion that Divine love means “beneficence”, His beneficence consists in His actions. Hence the different views are substantially in close relation to each other.
Man’s love towards God is a quality which manifests itself in the heart of the pious believer, in the form of veneration and magnification, so that he seeks to satisfy his Beloved and becomes impatient and restless in his desire for vision of Him, and cannot rest with anyone except Him, and grows familiar with the remembrance (dhikr) of Him, and abjures the remembrance of everything besides. Repose becomes unlawful to him and rest flees from him. He is cut off from all habits and associations, and renounces sensual passion and turns towards the court of love and submits to the law of love and knows God by His attributes of perfection. It is impossible that Man’s love of God should be similar in kind to the love of His creatures towards one another, for the former is desire to comprehend and attain the beloved object, while the latter is a property of bodies. The lovers of God are those who devote themselves to death in nearness to Him, not those who seek His nature (kayfiyyat), because the seeker stands by himself, but he who devotes himself to death (mustahlik) stands by his Beloved; and the truest lovers are they who would fain die thus, and are overpowered, because a phenomenal being has no means of approaching the Eternal save through the omnipotence of the Eternal. He who knows what is real love feels no more difficulties, and all his doubts depart. Love, then, is of two kinds—(1) the love of like towards like, which is a desire instigated by the lower soul and which seeks the essence (dhát) of the beloved object by means of sexual intercourse; (2) the love of one who is unlike the object of his love and who seeks to become intimately attached to an attribute of that object, e.g. hearing without speech or seeing without eye. And believers who love God are of two kinds—(1) those who regard the favour and beneficence of God towards them, and are led by that regard to love the Benefactor; (2) those who are so enraptured by love that they reckon all favours as a veil (between themselves and God) and by regarding the Benefactor are led to (consciousness of) His favours. The latter way is the more exalted of the two.
Section.
Among the Ṣúfí Shaykhs Sumnún al-Muḥibb holds a peculiar doctrine concerning love. He asserts that love is the foundation and principle of the way to God, that all “states” and “stations” are stages of love, and that every stage and abode in which the seeker may be admits of destruction, except the abode of love, which is not destructible in any circumstances so long as the way itself remains in existence. All the other Shaykhs agree with him in this matter, but since the term “love” is current and well known, and they wished the doctrine of Divine love to remain hidden, instead of calling it “love” they gave it the name of “purity” (ṣafwat), and the lover they called “Ṣúfí”; or they used the word “poverty” (faqr) to denote the renunciation of the lover’s personal will in his affirmation of the Beloved’s will, and they called the lover “poor” (faqír). I have explained the theory of “purity” and “poverty” in the beginning of this book.