"What is love" was the
most searched phrase on Google in 2012,
according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the
question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the
fields of science, psychotherapy, literature, religion and philosophy to
give their definition of the much-pondered word.
The physicist: 'Love is chemistry
Jim Al-Khalili
Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger
or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or
unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then,
that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust
is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release
of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or
attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals:
pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and
vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be
viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote
long-term relationships, mutual defence and parental support of children
and to promote feelings of safety and security.
• Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist and science writer.
The psychotherapist: 'Love has many guises'
Philippa Perry
Unlike us, the ancients did not lump all the various emotions that we
label "love" under the one word. They had several variations,
including:
Philia which they saw as a deep but usually
non-sexual intimacy between close friends and family members or as a
deep bond forged by soldiers as they fought alongside each other in
battle. Ludus describes a more playful affection found in fooling around or flirting. Pragma
is the mature love that develops over a long period of time between
long-term couples and involves actively practising goodwill, commitment,
compromise and understanding. Agape is a more generalised love, it's not about exclusivity but about love for all of humanity. Philautia
is self love, which isn't as selfish as it sounds. As Aristotle
discovered and as any psychotherapist will tell you, in order to care
for others you need to be able to care about yourself. Last, and
probably least even though it causes the most trouble, eros is about sexual passion and desire. Unless it morphs into philia and/or pragma, eros will burn itself out.
Love
is all of the above. But is it possibly unrealistic to expect to
experience all six types with only one person. This is why family and
community are important.
• Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist and author of Couch Fiction
The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment'
Julian Baggini
The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing.
Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbour, God and so on
all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided,
tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, unconditional. At
its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we
nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives
unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without
the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere
dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die.
• Julian Baggini is a philosopher and writer
The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories'
Jojo Moyes
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in
it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it,
almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all
consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories:
not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family,
for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates:
what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is
usually at those points that love is everything.
• Jojo Moyes is a two-time winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year award
Love in Islam
Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem
Praise be to Allah. We bear witness that there is only one God who
has no partners beside Him, and we bear witness that Muhammad is His
servant and messenger.
Praise be to Allah who blessed us with the guidance of His prophets
and messengers. Praise be to Allah whose Mercy encompasses everything.
Praise be to Allah who knows our needs and answers our calls and brings
peace to our hearts.
Praise be to Allah who breathed into us of His Spirit and placed the
light of His guidance in our inmost being. Whomever Allah guides, no one
can misguide, and whomever Allah misguides, no one can guide. We put
our trust in Allah and seek His forgiveness, aid, and support.
A man once came to the Prophet (puh) and asked him about the
hereafter. The Prophet asked him, “And what have you prepared for that
time?” The man replied, “Nothing, except that I love Allah and I love
you.” The Prophet (puh) answered him, “You are with the ones you love.”
Dear brothers and sisters, the guidance of Islam is the guidance of
love. The innate, natural and ancient religion that is Islam is the
religion of love. The Prophet (puh) came to guide us to love and to make
clear the love that is at the core of all religion. Our purpose as
human beings is to consciously manifest Allah’s love in our lives. This
is the most significant meaning of Khilafa and Ibada that can bring
purpose to us and transform our lives. When we reflect upon the history
of the Prophet (puh) and the spread of his message we will realize that
Islam could not have taken root in the world without the love that
filled the heart of the Prophet and was clearly manifest in his way of
relating and interacting with people that brought out their own deep and
profound love for him. Without this mutual and abiding love, none of us
would be here today. Without this love Islam would not have been
possible.
Today, it seems that we too often hear and read much that is harsh
and heartless about Islam and not enough that is loving and beautiful.
There seems to be too many messages of prejudice, literalism, legalism,
violence, and oppression. The superficiality, ugliness and darkness that
is too prevalent in today’s Islamic discourse is nothing like what the
Prophet brought us.
I would like to share with you part of the first sermon ever given by
the Prophet (puh) in Medina. This is what he had to say to his
companions,
Verily, the best discourse is the Book of Allah. One is truly
successful whose heart Allah has adorned with the love of His Book, and
whom, after living in denial, Allah has caused to enter into submission
to Him, and caused him to prefer His Book above any human discourse.
The Book of Allah is the most beautiful and eloquent of discourses.
Love that which Allah loves! Love Allah with all your hearts!
Grow not weary of hearing the Word of Allah. Do not stop remembering
Him. Do not let your hearts grow hard toward Him. For verily, Allah has
preferred His Book above all of Creation. Indeed, Allah has endowed it
with guidance to the best of deeds, and made it an example for the elect
of His servants, and filled it with righteous discourse, and has made
clear in it what is lawful and unlawful for you.
So, serve Allah alone, and associate with Him no other. Be
ever conscious of Him. Be truthful to Allah in what you utter from your
mouths. Let the Spirit of Allah be the source of love between you.
Can you hear the love in his words? Can you hear his urgent call to
our hearts? Can you sense the profound purpose in his teaching?
Love is so central to Islam that without it there can be no real
faith. The Quran tells us clearly what following the Prophet is about,
3:31 Say, if you love Allah, then follow me and Allah will
love you greatly and forgive your sins for Allah is forgiving and
merciful.
And even more decisively it says to the people of faith that,
5:54 O you who have faith whoever among you turns back from
his religion Allah will surely bring forth a people He loves and who
love Him who are humble before the faithful and exalted before the
deniers. They strive in the way of Allah and fear no blame from any
blamers. This is the favor of Allah, He bestows it on whomever He wills.
For Allah is all-encompassing, all-knowing!
In these two tremendous verses we can understand some remarkable
things. We can understand that faith and faithfulness are defined as
love between God and the people of faith. A Mu’min is one who is deeply
and profoundly in love with God. It is this love that motivates us to
strive, to seek, to turn back to Allah, to give up our worldly
attachments and return to our Rabb. It is this love that gives us the
power and strength to face the various trials of our faith throughout
our lives. It is this love that teaches us humility, compassion, trust,
obedience and honesty. It is this love that enables us to sacrifice, to
give of ourselves and of our possessions for the sake of God. It is this
love that opens us to submission, to Islam. We can also understand that
this relationship of love is a special, precious gift bestowed by God
upon us. Without His will and generosity we would be heedless of His
love in our hearts. We can also understand that the abandoning of
religion in the context of this Ayah is to turn away from love because
the consequence of this abandonment is that God promises to replace us
with people who have this relationship of love with Him. And we can
understand that the way to God’s love is to follow the Prophet (puh), to
be in his footsteps, to strive to be like him and in this striving our
love is made greater and greater by God.
In a Sacred Tradition Allah says,
I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known so I created heaven and earth that I may be known.
One of Allah’s names, one of His attributes, is Al Wajid. This word
has several meanings among them is to bring into existence. It also has
the meaning of intense, existential love. Reflecting upon this divine
name, we can see that there is a relationship between love and creation.
And reflecting upon the sacred tradition we can see that God’s love to
be known is the primary reason for creation. In this way we can come to a
truly profound insight; Allah’s love is the very cause of existence. We
are alive today because of His love, the whole Universe is here because
of His love.
The relationship of love between us and Allah, between us and others,
and between us and all of creation is essential to reaching our full
potential as human beings. When we nourish our hearts with love, when we
manifest Allah’s love in our lives; with our families, with our
friends, in our work, in our prayers, in everything that we do, the
entire meaning of life changes for us and our own experience of our
humanness is transformed; we become adorned with the beautiful
characteristics of the Prophet.
This is the meaning of following in the footsteps of the Prophet
(puh); we follow him by adorning ourselves with the qualities of his
noble character. We follow him by striving to become like him in our
humanness, in our quality of relationships, in our conduct in society,
in our service to humanity.
The noble character of the Prophet (puh) has been best explained by
his cousin, Jaffar Ibn Abu Talib, when he was asked by the King of
Abbysinia to explain his religion. Jaffar replied:
We were a people lost in ignorance. We worshipped idols, we
back-stabbed one another in gossip, we committed sins without shame, we
severed the bonds of mercy among us, and we were unkind neighbors. The
strong among us devoured the weak. Thus we were until Allah sent to us a
messenger from among ourselves, well-known to us in his nobility,
honesty, trustworthiness, and tenderness. He called us to unity and to
devoting our worship to Allah alone and to removing the idols from our
hearts. He commanded us to be truthful when we spoke, and to fulfill our
trust, and to preserve the bonds of mercy among us, and to be kind
neighbors, and to desist from violating what is sacred. He called us to
turn back from our sins, and from falsehood, and from devouring the
wealth of orphans, and from defaming honorable women. So we believed in
him and in his message and we followed what he received from his Lord.
Brothers and sisters, the Sunnah of the Prophet is about the kind of
character that manifests God’s love in existence. His Sunnah is that
which ennobles us, that which transforms us into better human beings.
It’s about becoming kind and tender human beings who are deeply and
profoundly in love with God.
The Prophet’s love, awe, and longing for Allah comes through with
overwhelming clarity when we reflect upon his prayers. Here is just one
example:
O my God, make me love You, make me love those who love You,
make me love all things that bring me closer to loving You. O my God,
make me love You, and Your angels, and Your prophets, and all of Your
creation. O my God, make my love for You dearer to me than myself, and
my family, and my wealth, and my children, and from cool, pure water to
the thirsty.
May Allah bless us with His love, and the love of those who love Him.
May Allah fill our hearts with love. Allah bless Prophet Muhammad, his
family, and companions. Peace be with you and Allah’s mercy.
Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem
Praise is to Allah the Merciful, and the Compassionate. I bear
witness that there is only one God and I bear witness that Muhammad is
His Prophet. Peace and blessing upon him, his family and companions. We
bear witness that he fulfilled his mission and delivered his trust and
made the path of surrender clear to us.
In the Quran it says,
2:165 Among people there are those who take others as equal
besides Allah. They love them as they would love Allah. But those who
have faith love Allah more than anything else.
You remember in the first part of this Khutba that the Prophet (puh)
told the man who came to him, “You are with those you love.” The Prophet
wasn’t just being nice to this man, he was teaching him and us
something very important. He was making clear that love is the ultimate
test of our worthiness as human beings. And he was giving us a way to
understand about our own love. To know what it is that we really love.
We are with what we love. Whatever we love is what is closest to us.
What is most often thought of and remembered by us, what is most sought
by us, that’s what we love. So, what is it that we remember the most?
What occupies our attention the most? What do we wish for the most? Let
us be honest with ourselves, do we think of Allah most of the time? Or
are we thinking of other things most of the time. Where is our
attention? Is it on God or is it on the countless other things that
occupy us and distract us from our real purpose?
If we can examine ourselves honestly and know what we love then we
have taken a major step forward. If we find that what we love is Allah
then we are blessed with a great gift for which all praise is due to
Allah. But if what we love is other than Allah, then at least we know
and we have the opportunity to seek to change what is in our hearts.
A reliable test of how true our love is for Allah is to see how much
we are able to serve others and to give of ourselves generously and
openly for Allah’s sake. This is one of the most important truths: The quality of our faith is reflected in our intention, attitudes, and behavior.
How do we do this? How do we clear our hearts of our love and
attachment for all these things that are other than Allah? How do we get
rid of our pre-occupation with all the other captivating distractions
that compete for our attention? How do we become among those who love Allah more than anything else ? We
can find the answer in the Quran and the way of our Prophet (puh) and
it is the remembrance of God because it is in the constant remembrance
of God that our hearts can find stillness and intimacy can develop. As
we are guided in the Quran:
13:28 It is through remembrance of God that hearts find rest.
In the Quran Allah promises us,
2:152 Remember Me, I shall remember you.
Our remembrance of Allah is His remembrance of us. Our call to Him is
His answer to us. Remembrance is the way of intimacy with Allah.
In a Sacred Tradition, Allah says, “I am as my worshipper thinks I
am. I am with him when he remembers Me if he seeks closeness to Me by as
little as an inch, I come closer to him by a yard. And if he seeks
closeness to Me by a yard, I come closer to him by a mile. And if he
comes to Me walking, I come to him running.”
In another Sacred Tradition Allah says, “My worshipper can get close
to me with nothing better than what I have made obligatory. And as he
continues to get closer with selfless acts of giving I love him. And
when I love him, I become his hearing, his sight, his hands, and his
feet. And whatever he asks of Me, I shall give him and whatever aid he
seeks of Me, I shall aid him.”
So, Allah’s grace multiplies with our sincere efforts and honest
intention to come closer to Him. Whatever we give to Him comes back
manifold to us. In this way, little by little, our love for Allah grows
and develops and it transforms us into loving, noble human beings.
We get close to Allah by serving Him, by being for His sake, by
learning to make our intentions purely for Him, by learning to become a
little less selfish and a lot more giving.
The Prophet (puh) once told his dear companion, Muazh Ibn
Jabal, “Muazh, I do love you!” Muazh replied, “And I love you, Messenger
of Allah, more dearly than my own father and mother!” The Prophet then
instructed Muazh, “Do not end a prayer without asking Allah to help you
remember Him, to be thankful to Him, and to serve Him in the best of
ways.”
As we continue to live our lives in remembrance of Allah our capacity
for love will grow, our hearts will expand and we will reach our full
human potential inshallah.
The intimacy and love that develops in us with our remembrance and other selfless acts of service is a mystery and a wonder.
Allah says in a Sacred Tradition, “I have prepared for my righteous
servants what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor been imagined by
any human heart.”
May Allah bless us with His merciful guidance to His straight path.
May He bless us with His love. Allah we seek refuge in You from hearts
that are not humble, and egos that are never satisfied, and eyes that do
not weep, and prayers that are not answered, and works that are not
elevated.
Allah, bless us with wholesome hearts, grateful tongues, and obedient
bodies. Do not let us forget You. Do not deny us loving You. Allah,
preserve us and protect us. Be merciful with us. Increase our blessings
and support us. O You who has ability over all things.
Allah, bless Your beloved servant, and the light of our hearts, our
master and friend Muhammad, the noble and pure Prophet and bless his
family, companions, and followers. May we become his companions in this
world and in the other world, and peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy
and blessings.
Rise to prayer that Allah may have mercy on us all.
Steve Jobs
Patanjali
Pearl S. Buck
