Make Allah Your Beloved Part 2

Allah is Not Selfish in His Love

Islam is about love, through and through, but you need to make Allāh your Beloved and you need to become the Beloved of Allāh before you can radiate the love of Allāh to the rest of humanity. You know you can pay lip-service and say, ‘Oh, Islam is not a religion of violence, Islam is a religion of love.’ You can only show others if you have that fire of the love of Allāh burning in your bosom. The flame is there definitely, because we are all torch-bearers of the Kalimah, لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ, but it needs to turn into a raging fire of love, which will touch and burn everyone who we meet, and interact with.

To become the Beloved of Allāh is not difficult. Allāh says:

وَإِنْ أَتَانِي يَمْشِي، أَتَيْتُهُ هَرْوَلَةً

Take one baby step towards becoming My Beloved – I will run to you and embrace you and make you My Beloved. And the more you come closer to Allāh, making Allāh your Beloved and becoming the Beloved of Allāh, Allāh says,

كُنْتُ سَمْعَهُ الَّذِي يَسْمَعُ بِهِ

I become your ears with which you hear

وَبَصَرَهُ الَّذِي يُبْصِرُ بِهِ

Your eyes with which you see

وَرِجْلَهُ الَّتِي يَمْشِي بِهَا

And your legs with which you walk, meaning every thought, every action, every word of yours is then guided by the love of Allāh Tabaraka wa Ta’ala.

There is a colossal difference between the love that Allāh has for you and the love that creation has for you. Some of the differences are: No matter who loves you from the creation it will come to an end one day because of Death. You can have your Laila, you can have your Zuleikha, you can become Majnun for your Laila, but it has to end. Either you die or she dies, and if you die, she will become somebody else’s Laila. But your love, your relationship of love with Allāh, never ends.

The second difference is that when someone from the creation loves you, there is always hasad and jealousy. If the parent shows a little bit more love towards the one child, the other children become jealous. But those who love Allāh and are the Beloved of Allāh, they are never jealous of each other.

The third difference is when you love someone from the creation or you want someone from the creation to love you, you have to initiate it. You ask your wife, ‘How much do you love me?’ She replies, ‘How much do you love me? You speak first.’ But with Allāh it is different. Imaam Qurtubi has said something amazing, he shared that one scholar said, ‘I had four misconceptions until I read the Qur’ān.  What was my first misconception? I thought that I must love Allāh first then Allāh will love me, until I read the verse where Allāh says:

يُحِبُّهُمْ وَيُحِبُّونَهُ

Allāh loves them then they love Allāh. Allāh talks about Him loving the creation first and then the creation loves Allāh.

I had a second misconception. I thought that I must first become happy with Allāh and then Allāh will be happy with me until I read the verse:

رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ وَرَضُوا عَنْهُ

Allāh is happy with them, and they are happy with Allāh. So Allāh is already happy.

And then my third misconception was that I thought I must remember Allāh first then Allāh will remember me until I read the verse where Allāh says:

وَمَا يَذْكُرُونَ إِلَّا أَنْ يَشَاءَ اللَّهُ

It is only because Allāh remembered you that you were enabled to remember Allāh.

And my fourth misconception was that I thought maybe I must first think of Allāh, and turn to Allāh in repentance then Allāh will think about me until I read the verse:

ثُمَّ تَابَ عَلَيْهِمْ لِيَتُوبُوا

It is only when Allāh gazes at you with His special attention that you are blessed with the ability to turn to Allāh in repentance, so Allāh was thinking of you first.

There are many differences between the love that the creation will have for you and the love that Allāh will have for you.  That you know when someone loves you, they can’t tolerate a partner. They don’t want somebody else loving you – ask your wife.  But look at Allāh! When Allāh loves you, Allāh calls Jibreel and says, ‘I love him’ then Jibreel announces to all the Angels in the Heavens that Allāh loves him, so all the angels start to love him. Then, Jibreel comes to Earth and makes an announcement that Allāh loves this person,

ثُمَّ يُوضَعُ لَهُ القَبُول فِي الأَرضِ‏

Everyone on Earth is now drawn to that person, attracted to that person and they start to like and love that person. So Allāh is not selfish in His love.

{Extracted and adapted from Volume One of the book In Pursuit of Purpose by Ml Sulaimaan Ravat}