Voice of British Muslim Women

Iffat Mirza, Raynes Park

There are many ways to love and to be loved. They’re not all easy. In fact, few of them are. To love is natural, and yet we are still figuring out, very much so, how to express our love, how to balance our love for others and the love one should show towards their own self. We’re consistently learning who we should love. How we should love them. What do we do with the love we have for them when they’re gone and we have no one to give it to? Even death isn’t strong enough to relegate love to this worldly realm. So, if our love extends beyond the realm of this life, so should the recipient of our love. I suppose that only really leaves God.

It seems obvious – we should love God, and God loves us too. As a Muslim, I grew up believing that God loves His creation, and that includes me. I always held dear to me the saying of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) in which God states: ‘When a servant of Mine advances towards Me a foot, I advance towards him a yard, and when he advances towards Me a yard, I advance toward him the length of his arms spread out. When he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.’ But I suppose somewhere along the line I took this for granted and didn’t consider the implications of this too much until fairly recently, when it dawned upon me that everybody dies and there is no permanence in this world.

Once this dawns upon you, it’s truly a very lonely existence.

On the brink of slipping into an existentialist’s interpretation of this world, I recalled the words of the Holy Qur’an ‘it is in the remembrance of Allah that hearts can find comfort’ from chapter 13 verse 28. God invites us to love Him. To remember Him in our times of trouble will inevitably increase our love for Him as we will learn that He alone can cure our aching hearts. Indeed, if we remember God in our times of trouble, as well as in our times of happiness, God will remember us too. What is this if not love?

The Holy Qur’an clearly states in chapter 29, verse 23: ‘And you cannot frustrate the designs of Allah in the earth nor in the heaven; nor have you any friend or helper beside Allah.’ So clearly, so beautifully it has been written. Allah is our friend. The sincerest Friend. The one without whom we are truly lost. But how does one love the perfect Being in a way that honours Him? Is it even possible?

The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) defines love in his book Nurul Qur’an Part II as ‘Love is not pretence or ritualistic, rather it is a faculty among human faculties. Its reality is that the heart likes something and is drawn to it. Just as the real qualities of something are made evident when it reaches a state of excellence, so is the case of love. Its treasures are made apparent when it reaches its climax and highest point[…] The greater the love, the more one is naturally drawn to the qualities of his beloved so much so that he becomes an image of the beloved. This is also the indication when man loves God he attains God’s light on a reflective basis in accordance with his own powers.’[i]

Becoming an image of our Beloved in this case, is impossible. No matter how much we try we can never possess the graciousness, the mercy, the compassion, or any of the other 99 attributes of Allah the Almighty. But if we can begin to even reflect one miniscule fraction, we may be able to spread some good in this world, and simultaneously strengthen our bond and love for God. Through such a bond, our hyper-perception of ourselves, to the point of madness, is minimalised. We are no longer lonely beings who are condemned to love without the promise of eternity.

When love is enduring it only makes sense for our beloved to be equally enduring.

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[i]https://www.alislam.org/book/quest-of-curious-muslim/why-should-we-love-allah-what-is-benefit/