RADICAL love God is visible in every trace of His creation and although the com-mon folk, the blind and dumb animal like creatures don’t recognize Him, the mystics drink not a single drop of water without discovering His vision. Love within the Is-lamic context is nothing except the very being of God, a cosmic current of love and mercy, that unleashes itself out of divine, creates this realm of existence and causes every one of us to come into being. It is an ocean that is God, is from God and flow-ing back to God. “Allah is He who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids,” says Mansur Al Hallaj. One of the names of Allah is Al Wadood the loving and Fakar-ud-din Iraqi says, “Ishq is the very being of Allah. If you can love the fellow human beings purely, not through your ego, with no mo-tives, you can merge with the divine current, and then the same love will carry you back home.”” Our love of humanity is inseparable from the love of God,” says Ah-med Al-Ghazali.
Fakar-ud- din al Razi says, “All of Islam can be reduced to two words, “Devotion to the Creator and service to His creation.” Quran says, “God is the first without begin-ning, the last without end,” outwardly manifest in the diversity of his attributes, but inwardly hidden in the essence of His Oneness.
Until five centuries after demise of Holy Prophet, Islamic Sufism was based on the idea of fearing God. Al–Ghazali was so much afraid of God that it led him to the point of paralysis. Rumi tells us that God humanity relationship is that of Lover and Be-loved, we can achieve union with the Beloved that there is path to God and that path is radical love, extreme love, that will come and burn inside of you everything other than God.” He says,” One look, one glance and you will fall in love with that Infinite beauty and what is the solution another glance, another look and you burn more.”
Attar says, “A thousand for His love expired each day and those who saw his face in blank dismay would rave and grieve and mourn their lives away. To die for the love of that bewitching sight was worth a hundred lives. Without His light, none could sur-vive His absence, nor could endure the King’s proximity. How strange it was that man could survive neither by the presence nor the absence of His look.” Rumi says, “Last night I became love crazed; Love saw me and said, “I am here. Don’t shout, say noth-ing.” “Love I am afraid of something else.” Love said, “There is nothing else, say nothing.
I will whisper great secrets in your ears, just nod yes, say nothing.” “What a beauty are You, an angel or human.” “Love said, not an angel, not a human say nothing.” I said, “I will lose my mind if you don’t tell me. Love said, “Then lose your mind and stay that way, say nothing.” I said, “My heart isn’t what you are describing God.” Love said, “Yes my child, but hush, say nothing.”
In Masanwi Rumi says, “O God, I have discovered love, how marvellous, how good, how beautiful it is…. I offer my salutations to the stars and moon. I offer my saluta-tions to the spirit of passion that aroused and excited this universe.” At another point, Rumi addresses it so beautifully as You. “Should everything pass away, it couldn’t happen without You. This heart of mine bears Your imprint. It has nowhere else to turn. The eye of intellect is drunk with You. The wheeling galaxy is humble before You.
You, my grape wine and my intoxication, my rose garden and my springtime, My sleep and repose, nothing happens without you.” You have disturbed my sleep. You have effaced my personality. You have broken every attachment. Nothing happens without you.” Rumi narrates the story of Lalih Majnun. The King heard about the be-witching beauty of Lalih and desired to see her, who is this, who made Majnun mad and he sings such heart rendering songs in praise of her. He called all the girls of that town and thought she would stand out amongst them, but all he could see was ordi-nary village girls. He then says, “Who is Lalih and Lalih steps forward and says, “I am Lalih, but you are not Majnun.” Rumi says in order to see the beauty of Lalih, you have to learn to look through the eyes of Majnun.
Ahmed Ghazali says, “Your eyes have to born again, you have to learn to look through the glance of love, you have to learn to speak the words of love, your feet have to walk the path of love and that is a complete transformation of faculties.” Open any page/Surah of Quran, you see the names of God, loving, compassionate forgiving, caring, generous, just, truthful, protector, kind, merciful and so on. The qualities that God wants us to develop and the qualities, which Quran describes God are synony-mous. If we want a connection with the Infinite and want His light to show us the way in this world and hereafter we have to grow in these qualities.
