FOR Rumi, ”Creative love or the urge to rejoin the spirit to divinity was the goal towards which everything moves. For lovers, God alone is their religion.” “On the seeker’s path, wise men/fools are one. In His love, brothers and strangers are one. Go on drink the wine of the Beloved. In that faith, Muslims and pagans are one.” All other considerations are set aside in the presence of love and no learning is required. Love is the true and only form of worship. The worshipper is saved by his own devotion and desire. Rumi says, “If you are in love, join the congregation. If you still have a mind then stay away. If you are pressed for home and parched by fire, I’ll take you to a secret stream, I know. You can drink, satisfy your desire, And if your eyes can’t see what’s hidden there. Just bring your thirst to serve our Messiah.”
According to Hadees Qudsai, Allah says, “I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the heavens and the earth, that you may know Me intimately.” Here is the divinity, Who desires to manifest His glory and love is the primary motive. Love is unleashing of God onto this realm of being. It is through love that God brings the cosmos into being, it is through love that we are sustained, and it is by merging with the cosmic current of love that we are led back Home. Rumi says, “It’s God who suffers His absence in me. Who through me cries out to Himself, Love most strange, most holy mystery, We are intimate beyond belief.” The great medieval Islamic mystic Ibn-Arabi says, “Allah’s motivation behind creation was in the first place love. If there had not been this Love, the world would not have manifested. The movement of the world from non-existence to existence is then (in reality) the movement of love manifesting itself.” He considers love to be the absolute centre of everything, the very life force that holds all things together. It is the primary motivating factor for the creation of the Universe and serves as an important vehicle to transverse the vast distance between mankind and God.
Another giant in the mystical tradition, Al-Ghazali, agrees. “Since it is the Creator’s will to create and since things do not just spring into existence out of necessity of their own nature, but from an intentional decision of the Almighty, then what could have been the motivation behind that decision? Since Allah is necessarily a perfect being, and since perfection requires ultimate goodness, creation is logically believed to have sprung into existence due to the generous and benevolent nature of its Maker.” God is benefactor to the totality of creatures. He lavishes loving-kindness on every class of created being, because He causes them to exist.
William Chittick further affirms by elaborating on Ibn-Arabi’s argument, which claims that manifestation of the infinite possibilities of non-existence into real materialization is definitive proof that love is God’s essential attribute. Since love is believed to have caused humanity to come into being, it also solicits the same in response. This is the reason why perfect love is considered to be the highest achievement of the soul and why mankind ought to diligently strive for it.
When we speak of love, we are speaking of the very being of God that caused this realm of existence and each and every one of us to come into being, an ocean that is God, is from God and is flowing back to God. Muslims say, “We are from God and every breath that we take we are returning back to God.” We have relegated this important metaphor to one single moment, we say it, only when someone passes away. Schimmel expresses this quandary into following words:- “The phenomenon of mystical love that underlies this development is one of the most fascinating aspects of Sufism: a transcendent and absolute object is made the goal of every thought and feeling, so that love gains absolute primacy in the soul and mind of the lover.”
Attar tells the story of Zul Noon Al-Misri (Egyptian). He has a dream in which all the Human beings, who have ever been, all the ones who are and all the ones who will be, are collected. They hear the voice of God offering them a series of gifts. The first is, “Who here wishes to attain the sum total of all the earthly delights and pleasures.” 90 percent raise hands and God says,” It’s granted” They receive and leave. They hear the voice of God again, “Who here wishes to attain salvation from any pain or torment of hell fire.” 90 percent of those left raise hands and God says, “It’s granted.” Smaller crowd left, “Who here wishes to be granted my most luminous garden that no eye has ever seen and no word has ever described.” 90 percent raise their hands and God says, “It’s granted.” A handful of people still left and this time the voice of God comes thundering. I gave you the choice of all the earthly pleasures, you chose not. I gave you the choice of salvation from hell fire, you choose not. I gave you the choice of my most luminous garden of paradise; you chose not, what are you here for? These people bow their heads in humility and said, “The one who asks, knows better, we didn’t come here for pleasure, nor salvation from pain, or to attain paradise, we came for You.” There is a pause and they hear God in His Jamali (beauty) tone, “In that case I am yours.”—To continue.
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
