Book of Healing - Qur'anic Healing - Whom does God love and whom does He not love?
Whom does God love and whom does He not love?
Tags: Nasut, Malakut, God's Love, Fourteen exalted attributes
1. As has already been mentioned in this book, in the light of a luminous and wisdom-filled sacred Hadith, eternal salvation and complete health and peace from all inner diseases are attained only in the desired destination, namely, the destination of annihilation (manzil-i fana'). This supreme and ultimate bliss is attained by those close servants of God whom He loves and upon whom He showers the rain of His pure light, until they are annihilated in it. Now here it is most necessary to mention the attributes of those close servants of God whom He loves and also to mention the disease and vices of those whom He does not love. Thus, in order to know this, the study of the diagram below and its explanation can be extremely useful.
2. In the diagram above, the outermost circle shows nasut (the world of humanity = the physical world = this world), in which are written twenty eight words, which are directly or indirectly from the wise Qur'an. Fourteen of these words have positive meanings and the other fourteen have negative meanings. The questions which are posed in the very beginning (i.e. in the title) of the article are answered through affirmation or negation in these words. You see that here the direction of positive meanings is towards malakut (the world of angels, the higher world), whereas the direction of the negative ones is not so. The clear indication of this shows that if a salik really wants to reach the desired destination, he has to necessarily adopt the higher qualities.
3. (1-2: Obedience and Disobedience): In verses (3:31-32), the obedience of the holy Prophet is considered the single condition of the love of God, as the perfect faith lies in it, and also it has been emphasised that disobedience of his command is unbelief and God does not befriend and love unbelievers. Thus, this Qur'anic purport is not only the main purpose of this diagram, but also the very essence of this article. The rest is only its explanation.
Regarding (3-4 Goodness and Badness): God says: "And do good. Lo! God loves the ones who do good" (2:195). But which goodness? For, due to the different standards of the religions of the world, it is possible that one person may consider a thing good, whereas another may consider the same thing bad. Thus to do good will be valid only under the obedience of the Prophet. And whatever may be contrary to this, will be bad, for it will not be like the goodness which Islam approves. (51:34).
4. (5-6: Peace-making and Mischief): Peace-making and mischief are contrary to each other. Thus, when the noble Qur'an says: "And God loves not mischief" (2:205), this means that God does not love mischief-makers, rather He loves the peace-makers. For here the meaning (i.e. love) is applied to the antonym of the original word.
(7-8: Purity and Impurity): God loves those who live clean and pure lives externally and internally (9:108) and those who are not clean and pure (9:28) cannot attain this bliss. You know that the existence of mankind is a compendium of three things: body, soul and intellect and accordingly, there are three kinds of purity and impurity - physical, spiritual and intellectual.
5. (9-10: Repentance and Sin): Among those whom God loves are also those who repent in true sense (2:222) but God never loves those who persist in their sins (2:190).
(11-12: Faith and Unbelief):All the beauties of Islam are gathered in faith and there is nothing but vice in unbelief. Thus, when God says: "God does not love the unbelievers" (3:32), it means that God certainly loves the faithful, for faith is loved from both sides (49:7), from the side of God and the side of (His) servants.
6. (13-14: Justice and Injustice): God loves those who judge with equity (5:42), but those who do not judge with equity, are not worthy of this most pure friendship (3:57). Both equity and inequity are of two kinds: with respect to oneself and with respect to others.
(15-16: Piety and Impiety): There is piety on one side and impiety on the other. Piety contains all the meanings of religion. Therefore, God loves the pious (3:76) but no impious and immoral person can be a friend of God (38:28).
7. (17-18: Patience and Impatience): Patience is among the great virtues of the Prophets and awliya'. It is related to both physical and spiritual kinds of calamities. Thus the virtue of patience cannot be perfected unless a mu'min is afflicted by manifold calamities. This is extremely necessary, for God does not love the one who is not religious, patient and grateful (3:146). If someone during a trial shows anxiety, fear and panic, this deprives him of the supreme bounty, namely, the friendship of God (70:20).
(19-20: Trust in God and Mistrust): True trust in God is at the level of perfection of faith, where every perfect mu'min considers God his wakil (the one whom he trusts), and God loves and befriends such mu'mins with the utmost kindness (3:159), but the unbelievers have no wakil (47:11).
8. (21-22: Observance of limits and Transgression of limits): Glad tidings in any religion other than Islam, is something meaningless, whereas glad tidings for the faithful in the Qur'an is practical glad tidings in which is mentioned the meeting with the souls and angels and the attainment of the love of God in this life (41:30, 9:112). The same glad tidings is for those mu'mins also who observe the limits, namely the laws of religion. But God never loves those who transgress them (5:87).
(23-24: Humility and Pride): In this world, poison is the most dangerous and lethal thing for every living creature, similarly pride is the deadly poison for the ethical and spiritual life. This deadly poison has no remedy. But, yes, there is one thing which can destroy it, and that is humility. Thus God loves the humble, but does not like the proud (22:34, 16:23).
9. (25-26: Spending wealth in the path of God and Extravagance): The wise Qur'an says: "He (God) does not love the extravagant" (7:31). The clear indication of this verse is that God loves and enriches those mu'mins who do not hesitate to spend their wealth in His path (2:261), with the everlasting wealth of His wisdom-filled love.
(27-28: Jihad and Refusal to do jihad): As you know, the jihad is in many senses. That is, there are many kinds of jihad and each one in its own place is important. One of these is when, in order to meet the needs of the country and nation, the collective struggle of the people for progressive activities becomes like a leaden wall, then God likes such a united effort. Those who do not participate in such works without a reason, are like those who stay at home during jihad (61:4, 4:95).
10. What a great ingratitude and negligence is on our part that we hear a lot about the light of love of God, the Holy, the Exalted, but we neither melt, nor do we do any revolutionary work to attain it, although the entire inner healing and health lies in it, and all diseases are due to the absence of this supreme elixir. Thus, these fourteen exalted attributes related to heavenly love are the signs of true health, and in contrast to them, the blameworthy attributes are certainly the inner diseases.
11. Divine light is a soul-nourishing and faith-illumining light by whose effulgence the darknesses of ignorance vanish. This light is the fountainhead of pure life, namely, real life (16:97). Thus the faithful servant whom God loves becomes annihilated in this light and attains a new life. This is an explanation of annihilation in God (fana' fi'llah). All Prophets were in the rank of annihilation in God and they used to invite and exhort all human beings towards this final destination without any discrimination and difference. For the guidance of every great guide is till the final destination. In other words, every Prophet makes the true mu'mins of his cycle merge in God before their physical death. It is obvious that God Himself is the final destination of all.
12. There have been many great personalities in Islam, who had attained the rank of annihilation in God, but the world did not know who they were. For, the one who according to "He who recognises himself recognises his Lord" cannot recognise himself, cannot recognise God and His friends (awliya') also. Yet in the religion of nature (Islam), there is no despondency from the mercy of God, for there are all the means of knowledge and recognition in it.
4 Ramadan, 1406
14th May, 1986.
| Chapter Index | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter |