Loving Allah

Without loving Allah, you cannot be a professional worshiper of Allah. Those who really love what they do, succeed in their work.

A teacher, who loves to teach, succeeds in teaching more than a teacher who teaches for money. A chef, who loves to cook, succeeds more than a chef who does not like their job.

Applying the same logic, only a person who genuinely loves Allah is equipped to worship Him wholeheartedly. It is impossible to worship that which you know not and love not. Worship and love are intimately related.

The highest level of love is worship and love is the foundation and essence of godly living. True and genuine worship of Allah does not take place except through loving Him.
Allah’s Messenger said, “None of you believes until I am more beloved to him than his family, wealth and all the people.”

If the authenticity of your belief is conditional upon loving Allah’s messenger more than anything else, then the obvious reality is that one does not even smell the fragrance of faith until they love Allah more than anything else individually and collectively.

Our love to Allah is the very foundation of our faith. Since, love is as good as the entity in which it is placed, achieving close to perfect faith is directly related to the perfection of the beloved.

Allah’s perfection infinitely exceeds our perception of perfection. He is free from any deficiency and all his attributes are occasion for praise. Thus, those who know Him, love Him more than they love anyone and anything else. Therefore, they freely submit themselves to Him, not because they have to, but because they love to; they love it and enjoy it.

Worship is the submission and subordination internally and externally to the beloved Lord out of love and adoration.

You and I psychologically are neither willing nor able to subordinate or submit ourselves, both internally and externally in all conditions except through worshipful love. Hence, this love must be dispensed only to Allah. This type of love provides the long term impetus for worship and service. Love without subordination and servitude is not worshipful love.

Without love, subordination and servitude do not constitute worship. However, when love is coupled with servitude, humility, submission, subordination, adoration and veneration, the result of combining these attitudes of faith is true and genuine worship. This love-based submission brings about liberation from worldly control.

Love and Servitude
Man cannot experience peace and tranquility without knowing his Maker. When man knows his Lord and understands his intended relationship to Him, he falls in love with Him. Allah is not distant or hard to get to know. He is neither mysterious nor capricious, but rather evident in the world around us and in us and easy to know. When man knows his Lord not, he fails to love Him. Certain destruction is indeed the result of man not truly loving his Lord and acknowledging his subservience to Him.

Full love and servitude are suitable only to Allah (Jehovah). “Love your Lord with all your heart” (Mk 12:30). Loving Allah produces servitude and submission all the time and in all places internally and externally. Loving Allah is the emotion that puts lovers in motion, starts them on the path of devotion, eases for them difficulties, shortens for them otherwise long distances and relieves hardships as the sweetness of love offsets the bitterness of difficulties. When you are love-borne, you can cover the distance to come closer to Allah faster and easier. A poet has said,

My religion is love
This is my religion
There is no compulsion in the religion
The one whose religion is dislike moves as if dragging his feet in the mud
The one passionate for his religion advances
The one who is passionless slacks.

Excerpt taken from Radwan's upcoming book "Live Your Life On Purpose".

Emailed to the blogger by Mastura