Love for Allah is great and fine but it needs to reflect as compassion and a deep sense of reverence and fellowship etiquette with our fellow human beings to bring forth our progeny into a beautiful space as ordained by Allah Subhanawataala .
One of my favorite ahadith is when the Rasul (SAW) says, "All creation are the dependents of God, and the most beloved to him are the those who are of benefit to His dependents."
This really resonated with me. I was a guest on the NYT Modern Love podcast (the episode came out yesterday and is on Apple and Spotify) and, while the aspects of love for God didn’t end up in the episode, we ended on the note of a love based on service to humanity.
Congratulations on being on the show! Unfortunately, I haven't listened to the podcast for some time now. It was first introduced to me by a close friend who was an avid fan, but the unfortunate conclusion to that relationship has left a cloud of melancholy over something I once much enjoyed.
I do agree that there are strands within humanism that emphasize love of humanity as a virtue in and of itself; I just don't believe they have the kind of philosophical basis for the argument that lends itself to deep socio-cultural adoption. In many ways, it is an attempt by Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers to rescue the most beautiful aspect of the religion they burned - the Christian emphasis on love - by embedding it in secularized narratives of humanism.
For me, however, I am entirely unconvinced - and I believe larger society is, too! - by the underpinnings of this emphasis. Rationalist humanism builds a cosmology ground up, starting from the individual man and extrapolating upward. In this system, love exists within the human and only ever functions as an individual, personal emotion. To an existentialist, the meaning derived from love may be authentic to you, but it has neither normative nor metaphysical value. To simply say "I don't want to love other humans" is sufficient argument to step outside of that kind of paradigm.
In theistic conceptualizations and centering of love - whether Christian or Hindu or Muslim, etc -, however, love cannot be stepped out of without stepping out of harmony with all existence. Love reverberates from the greatest act of love, that of God grasping nonexistence by its formlessness and commanding it to be, wherein nonexistence bursts into an ever trembling desperation for the very Being that shook it into the wakefulness of becoming.
From a theistic cosmology, to love is to be in connection with one's entire purpose for being existent instead of nonexistent. It is to be in harmony with oneself, others, the universe - God Himself. How does one even begin to compare the consequences of one school of thought which sees love as a necessary survival instinct that is, at its core, selfish in preservation; and another that sees love as the very meaning of the existence of life itself.
We humans ARE God. We are made, again and again today, to forget that — through countless distractions, through endless noise. When we remember — Remember— that we ARE God, we ARE Love, that they are one in the same — One — we can love ourselves, others, life, all moments, great or small, ugly or beautiful, with fervor and fearlessness; we can LOVE, and truly come from Love, from WITHIN. (We are too busy making God of all things / people / entities *outside* of us. We must return to our Within. From there, starting there, cultivating there, loving there, just KNOWING LOVE IS THERE, will allow us to love, “outward”, more beautifully, fully, freely.)
My friend, we humans are in no way God. We are imperfect in every way, and He is One who transcends imperfection in every way. We are in thirst for God; we are not in thirst for ourselves
All thoughts, all passions, all desires,
All that stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of love,
That feed His Sacred Flame.
The brilliant Coleridge. As timeless as ever.
Love for Allah is great and fine but it needs to reflect as compassion and a deep sense of reverence and fellowship etiquette with our fellow human beings to bring forth our progeny into a beautiful space as ordained by Allah Subhanawataala .
What are your thoughts on this?
One of my favorite ahadith is when the Rasul (SAW) says, "All creation are the dependents of God, and the most beloved to him are the those who are of benefit to His dependents."
Wonderful and very apt quote
Beautiful work! Will be thinking about this for a while
Glad you found meaning in this
same.
This really resonated with me. I was a guest on the NYT Modern Love podcast (the episode came out yesterday and is on Apple and Spotify) and, while the aspects of love for God didn’t end up in the episode, we ended on the note of a love based on service to humanity.
Congratulations on being on the show! Unfortunately, I haven't listened to the podcast for some time now. It was first introduced to me by a close friend who was an avid fan, but the unfortunate conclusion to that relationship has left a cloud of melancholy over something I once much enjoyed.
I do agree that there are strands within humanism that emphasize love of humanity as a virtue in and of itself; I just don't believe they have the kind of philosophical basis for the argument that lends itself to deep socio-cultural adoption. In many ways, it is an attempt by Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers to rescue the most beautiful aspect of the religion they burned - the Christian emphasis on love - by embedding it in secularized narratives of humanism.
For me, however, I am entirely unconvinced - and I believe larger society is, too! - by the underpinnings of this emphasis. Rationalist humanism builds a cosmology ground up, starting from the individual man and extrapolating upward. In this system, love exists within the human and only ever functions as an individual, personal emotion. To an existentialist, the meaning derived from love may be authentic to you, but it has neither normative nor metaphysical value. To simply say "I don't want to love other humans" is sufficient argument to step outside of that kind of paradigm.
In theistic conceptualizations and centering of love - whether Christian or Hindu or Muslim, etc -, however, love cannot be stepped out of without stepping out of harmony with all existence. Love reverberates from the greatest act of love, that of God grasping nonexistence by its formlessness and commanding it to be, wherein nonexistence bursts into an ever trembling desperation for the very Being that shook it into the wakefulness of becoming.
From a theistic cosmology, to love is to be in connection with one's entire purpose for being existent instead of nonexistent. It is to be in harmony with oneself, others, the universe - God Himself. How does one even begin to compare the consequences of one school of thought which sees love as a necessary survival instinct that is, at its core, selfish in preservation; and another that sees love as the very meaning of the existence of life itself.
Beautiful ❤️ Tabarak Allah 🙏🏿
Barakallahu fiikum
love is pain.
But it's not only pain.
Jazak'Allah Khair for sharing this!
Beautifully written, btw — so much of this!
We humans ARE God. We are made, again and again today, to forget that — through countless distractions, through endless noise. When we remember — Remember— that we ARE God, we ARE Love, that they are one in the same — One — we can love ourselves, others, life, all moments, great or small, ugly or beautiful, with fervor and fearlessness; we can LOVE, and truly come from Love, from WITHIN. (We are too busy making God of all things / people / entities *outside* of us. We must return to our Within. From there, starting there, cultivating there, loving there, just KNOWING LOVE IS THERE, will allow us to love, “outward”, more beautifully, fully, freely.)
My friend, we humans are in no way God. We are imperfect in every way, and He is One who transcends imperfection in every way. We are in thirst for God; we are not in thirst for ourselves