The Book of Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment emphasizes that the love of God is not only possible but essential for spiritual growth. Ghazali argues that virtues like repentance, patience, and thankfulness lead to love, and that all subsequent spiritual stages, such as inner peace and contentment, flow from it. Love of God is the core of the believer’s journey, transforming the soul and guiding every action. It is a divine grace cultivated through obedience, devotion and humility, ultimately leading to deeper intimacy with God and spiritual fulfillment.
Favorite Excerpts:
- Al-Hasan [al-Basri] said, “Whoever knows his Lord loves Him. Whoever knows the world renounces it. The believer does not indulge in mindless frivolity for whenever he reflects, he grieves.”
- Abu Sulaymān al-Darani remarked, “Among those whom God created are some whom paradise itself with all its delights cannot distract from Him; how then could they possibly be distracted from Him by this world?” [p. 7]
- Harim ibn Hayyan said, “When the believer knows his Lord he loves Him and when he loves Him, he approaches Him and when he discovers the sweetness of the approach to Him, he no longer looks on this world with an avid eye, nor does he gaze on the hereafter with an indifferent eye, for what pains him in this world refreshes him in the next.” [p. 8]
- GOD ALONE MERITS LOVE. Whoever loves anyone other than God, without regard for his relationship with God, does so out of ignorance and a flawed knowledge of God. Love of God’s Messenger is laudable; it is the very essence of the love of God. So, too, with love of religious scholars and the devout because that which is loved by the beloved is itself worthy of love. [Thus,] the messenger of the beloved is worthy of love, and he who is loved by the beloved is also to be loved. All this goes back to love of the original object of love and to nothing else. For those endowed with insight there is in reality no object of love but God, nor does anyone but He deserve love. [p. 23]
- He who is beautiful deserves to be loved and yet, the absolutely beautiful is the One who has no equal, the Unique who has no opposite, the Eternal who has no rival, the Self-Sufficient who has no need, the Omnipotent who does what He will and judges as He wishes without anyone to oppose His rule or revise His judgment: the Omniscient whose knowledge not a speck of dust in heaven and earth eludes; [Qur’an 34:3] the Vanquisher from the clutch of whose power the napes of tyrants cannot escape and from whose rule and force the necks of Caesars cannot slip free; the Eternal who has no first to His existence; the Everlasting who has no last to His perdurance; the Necessarily Existent whose mighty presence non-existence cannot encircle; the Self-Subsistent who subsists in Himself and in whom every existing thing subsists; the Almighty of the heavens and the earth; Creator of minerals, animals and plants; the Alone-in-Glory and Might; the One in rule and reign; the Possessor of goodness and majesty and splendour, beauty, power and perfection, in the knowledge of whose majesty intellects stand baffled and in whose description tongues can merely conjecture; whom the perfect knowledge of gnostics confesses its inability to know and whom the utmost prophethood of prophets affirms its failure to describe. As the master of all prophets (God’s blessing upon him and upon them) said, “I cannot enumerate the praise of You: You are as You have already praised Yourself.” [p. 35-36]
- Ignorance and heedlessness are the sources of all misery; knowledge and awareness are the bases of all felicity. [p. 65]
- One cause of a feeble love for God in human hearts is the strong love for this world, comprising love of family and possessions, children and relatives, property and livestock, orchards and gardens. Someone who delights in lovely bird songs and the fresh breeze of the morning is still attached to the pleasure that comes from loving the world and so his love for God has been weakened. To the degree in which he is on intimate terms with this world, to that degree does his intimacy with God grow less. Nothing is gained from this world without a corresponding loss in the world-to-come, and necessarily so: a man who approaches the east unavoidably distances himself from the west by the same degree. A man with two wives cannot gladden his first wife’s heart without at the same time causing pain to his second; this world and the world to come are both wives of one man and are like east and west. This awareness is plainer than eyesight to those with hearts. [p. 69]
- A novice said to his master, “I have been given some slight acquaintance with love.” The master said, “O my son, are you tempted by a beloved other than God, one whom you prefer to Him?” “No,” he replied. The master exclaimed, “Do not be so eager for love! God gives love to no one unless He afflicts him!” [p. 105]
- Whoever loves God does not disobey Him. For this reason Ibn al-Mubarak said: You disobey God while you proclaim His love. Upon my life! this is wondrous among acts! If your love were genuine, you would obey Him. The lover is obedient to the one whom he loves. In this sense it has also been said: I forgo what I crave for what You have craved. I am pleased with what pleases You though my soul be vexed.”
- Sahl said, “A distinguishing mark of love is to prefer Him to yourself.” And also, “Not everyone who practices obedience to God becomes a lover. He alone is a lover who avoids forbidden things.” [p. 111-112]
- Another sign of love is that one be so rapt in the litany of God’s name that his tongue does not flag nor his heart grow empty. Whoever loves a thing feels compelled to mention it often and to mention anything connected with it. Thus, a mark of love of God is the love of mentioning Him, together with a love of the Qur’an which is His word, love of His Prophet, and love of all who are related to him. Whoever loves someone loves even the dog in his neighbourhood. [p. 113]
- Ibn Mas’ud said, “None of you should ask about himself but only about Qur’an: he who loves the Qur’an loves God; he who does not love the Qur’an does not love God.”
- Sahl said, “One mark of love of God is love of the Qur’an. A mark of both love of God and love of the Qur’an is love of the Prophet. A mark of love of the Prophet is love of sunna. A mark of love of the sunna is love of the Hereafter. A mark of love of the Hereafter is hatred of this world. A mark of hatred of this world is that one take from it nothing more than a provision, just enough for the world-to-come.”
- Another sign of love is to be on intimate terms with seclusion and with one’s inner supplication of God, as well as with recitation of His book. [p. 114]
- Still another sign is to find joy in obedience to God and not deem it onerous; to allow its burdensomeness to slide away and not even to consider it burdensome. [p. 117]
- Another sign is to be compassionate and merciful to all the servants of God while remaining harsh to all His enemies and indeed, to everyone who does anything which He hates. This is in accord with God’s word: hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves. [Qur’an 48:29] He does not fear any reproach, nor does anything turn him aside from anger on God’s behalf. God describes His friends thus since He says, “Those who are bent on love of Me the way a boy hankers after something and who take refuge in remembrance of Me like the eagle to its nest, who are wrathful like the leopard who when vexed doesn’t care whether people are many or few. [p. 118]
- Junayd said, “In love of God people are either ordinary or elite. The ordinary acquire love through knowing God’s ceaseless benevolence and the profusion of His bounties and do not refrain from striving to please Him; however, their love decreases or increases in proportion to His beneficence and favour. By contrast, the elite attain love through the greatness of God’s decree, through His power and knowledge and wisdom, and through His uniqueness in sovereignty. Since they know His perfect attributes and His most beautiful names they are unrestrained in loving Him. In their view He deserves love because He is worthy of it, even if He were to take away all favours from them.” [p. 130]
- No idle swaggerer enjoys close friendship with God. No trickster gains it by sharp-sightedness. God’s confidants are men all of whom are noble, All of them elected, all toilers for God. [p. 137]
- ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Aziz said, “No joys remain for me apart from the workings of divine predestination.” Someone questioned him, “What do you desire?” He answered, “What God has decreed.”
- And Maymun in Mihrān said, “Whoever is discontented with the divine decree has no remedy for his stupidity.”
- Fudayl declared, “If you are not at peace with what God has ordained, neither will you be content with what your own self decrees.” [p. 151]
- One of the pious ancestors said, “Whenever God hands down a decree from heaven He likes people to be pleased with His decree.”
- Abu al-Darda said, “The summit of belief is patience with God’s decision and contentment with His decree.”
- ‘Umar (may God be pleased with him) said, “Whatever condition of need or of ease in which I find myself is all the same to me, whether at morning or at evening.” [p. 152]
- Urwa ibn Zubayr had his leg amputated at the knee because of a gangrenous sore which had erupted there. Afterwards he exclaimed, “Praise God Who took only one of my legs! I swear by You— even if You have taken away, You have also let remain and even if You have afflicted, You have safeguarded as well!” And all that night he prayed without ceasing. [p. 159]
- When someone says that poverty is affliction and trial and that family is a burdensome concern and that earning a living is toil and trouble, that offends against contentment. Instead, one ought to submit to the order of things because of Him who so ordered them, one ought to concede the realm to Him who owns it and declare, like ‘Umar, “It is the same to me whether I start the day rich or poor, for I do not know which of the two is better for me.” [p. 173]
- Rabi’a al-Adawiya said one day, “Who will guide us to our lover?” Her maid-servant responded, “Our lover is already with us but the world has severed us from Him.” [p. 190]
- Harim in Hayyān remarked, “When a believer knows his Lord, he loves Him. When he loves Him, he turns towards Him. When he discovers the sweetness of his turning towards Him he no longer looks on this world with a craving eye, nor does he regard the next world with an indifferent eye, for [craving] pains him in this world while the other revives him for the world to come.” [p. 191]
