Love and Hate for the Sake of Allah

Allah (swt) is telling us who our enemies are, and there is reason to be extremely careful, aware as a believer is meant to be that Shayṭān has this measure of access. Through the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), Allah (swt) speaks to one further matter: the best deed loved by Allah, He says, is love for the sake of Allah and hatred for the sake of Allah. Once the enemies are known, a believer must also know his friend: the first thing that must be established in the heart is who is one's enemy and who is one's friend. Anyone unable to draw this distinction is lost — the "I love everybody" attitude, wanting everybody into Jannah regardless, the kind that goes about lost among its own flowers, is no better than a claim to be more generous or more knowledgeable than Allah (swt) Himself; nāʿūdhu billāh. Such a person has lost the plot; this is nothing but a whispering, one of the teachings of Shayṭān. What is loved is only what Allah (swt) is pleased to have loved, and what is hated and detested is only what Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him) have taught is to be hated — this is the first step of becoming a good Muslim.

The first thing to establish is love of Allah (swt) Himself, for without loving Him nothing else follows, and prayer itself has no root. This knowledge of Allah, maʿrifatullāh, must enter the heart; there are many ways the scholars teach of coming to love Allah (swt). It was the Jews and the Christians who once went about among themselves claiming that Allah loved them specially, as His children, the chosen ones — and it was in response to this claim that Allah (swt) revealed a verse:

Say: if you love Allah, then follow me, and Allah will love you, and forgive your sins. The function of a true shaykh, it is said, is twofold: to help a servant fall in love with Allah, and to help Allah fall in love with the servant in return. The first half is the easier one — counting the blessings of Allah (swt), being grateful for them, giving thanks, is enough by itself to let a person fall in love, since he is simply a creation of Allah and stands only to gain by it. The harder question is how Allah (swt) comes to love a servant in return, and the same verse gives the answer: it is by following the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) that Allah (swt) comes to love a servant back. So Allah (swt) is to be loved.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) must be loved as well; teaching a child to love Allah, to love the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and to love the Book of Allah is among the first functions of a father. After them come the awliyāʾ, the shuyūkh, the ʿulamāʾ — those whom Allah (swt) loves, those who point the way to Him, to His good pleasure, riḍā, and to the highest Firdaws. Allah (swt) commands: "be in the company of the truthful" —

— and it is said that when a person sits in the gathering, the majlis, of such people, the heart itself comes alive; the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says so. Beyond persons, the qualities and attributes that Allah (swt) approves of — generosity, patience, ṣabr, and the rest — must themselves be learned and loved and cultivated in the heart, together with every path that leads toward Allah (swt), every act of worship, however small, that brings a person closer to Him. The aim in every action, every deed, is captured in the line, Ilāhī anta maqṣūdī wa riḍāka maṭlūbī — "O Allah, You are my object, and Your good pleasure is what I seek, nothing else." The ṣalāh must be loved, however difficult; the dhikr of Allah (swt) must be loved; good deeds, and the doing of good deeds, must be loved; and every good attribute, akhlāq al-ḥamīdah, that Allah (swt) wishes a servant to have, must be loved as well.

The best deed loved by Allah (swt) was named, at the outset, as two things together: love for the sake of Allah, al-ḥubbu fī Allāh, and enmity, al-bughḍu fī Allāh — anger, hostility, displeasure toward what Allah (swt) hates. A Muslim draws a line even with those he loves most. A son may love his father dearly, and say to him: hold on — I love you, but not to the point that we do haram together; it is ḥarām, and Allah hates that we should do what is ḥarām. Suppose a father says to his son, on his own birthday, come, let us go to the pub, or whatever it might be; the son answers, my father, I love you dearly — but you know I am not yet the practising Muslim I should be, and even so, you are asking me to do what is ḥarām? That is impossible. I love you, but there is a limit to my love; I hate this particular action of yours. Should the father gamble, or drink, or do what is ḥarām, the son says: no, father, I am not interested. When a creation asks for obedience in disobedience to the Creator — lā ṭāʿata li-makhlūqin fī maʿṣiyati al-khāliq — the answer is that Allah, the Creator, has said otherwise, and so obedience cannot be given: I love you, I respect you, but I cannot obey you in this. This is the rule in Islam. A Muslim cannot love those who hate Allah (swt) or hate Islam, nor applaud and agree with them.