Loving Allah and Its Impact on Our Behaviors
Loving Allah is the spirit of our worship and it is the essence of our Imaan. Loving Allah means endearing ourselves to Him and attaining His pleasure.
Brothers and Sisters!
We can only taste the sweetness of Imaan if we truly love Allah (SWT) and His Messenger (PBUH), more than anyone and anything else including our own selves.
The Prophet (SAW) said, “There are three qualities, whoever possesses them will relish the sweetness of Imaan through them:
1. Allah and His Messenger are more beloved to him than others.
2. When he loves someone, he loves them only for Allah’s sake.
3. He hates reverting to disbelief as much as he would hate to be thrown into a fire. [Bukhari]”
Why Should We Love Allah?
- We love Allah because of what we know of Him, and what we know of His names and attributes. Imam ibn al-Qayyim (Rahimahu Allah) said, “Whoever believes in Allah, believes in His names and attributes, and knows Him, loves Him more than he loves others, enjoys the closeness to Him and aspires to see Him, after he enters Jannah, and listen to His speech.”
- We love Allah because of the favors and bounties that He has conferred upon us. It is inherent in our natures to love those who are kind to us and who do us favors. We love Allah because everything we have is from Him. We owe Him our creation, our life, our health, and all the bounties and blessings we are enjoying. This all moves our hearts to love Him. Allah (SWT) says:
"وما بكم من نعمة فمن الله."
“And whatever you have of favor - it is from Allah.” (An-Nahl: 53)
- Allah (SWT) created us and fashioned us in the best proportions, endowed us with intellects, tongues, vision and hearing. He subjected for us what is in the heaven and what is one earth, the day and the night, the sun and the moon, the rivers and seas.
- Allah sent to us the seal of His Prophets, Muhammad (SAW) with the Qur’an, the final revelation to mankind. We turn to Him for forgiveness and repentance when we sin.
- Allah is the One Who made for us mates from ourselves to find tranquility in them, and he placed between us affection and mercy.
His bounties are countless. Allah (SWT) says:
"وإن تعدوا نعمة الله لا تحصوها إن الله غفور رحيم."
“If you tried to number Allah´s blessings, you could never count them. Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (An-Nahl: 18).
Brothers and Sisters!
We need to ask ourselves an important question: Is our love for Allah a true love? It is easy to claim love but one has to prove his claim. To examine the genuineness of our love for Allah, we need to ask ourselves some questions:
1- Do we maintain our five daily prayers on time or we prioritize other matters over them. Do we pay Zakah on the money we have? Do we give Zakah passionately or do we struggle to do that?
2- Are we keen on doing more Nafl and recommendable acts of worship that are extra so we can get closer to Allah and earn His love?
3- Do we follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (SAW) and emulate him in our worship, in our character, are we keen on applying his Sunnah or we are reluctant in doing it or do it with difficulty in our hearts?
4- Do we always love to read Qur’an, and reflect on its meaning, and implement its instructions in our daily life?
5- Do we seek to Allah day and night, and in all affairs?
6- Do we humble ourselves to our fellow Muslims brothers and sisters? Do we seek to give dawah to non-Muslims and care for them?
7- Do we practice the teachings of Islam with sincerity and passion or we hide our identity out of fear of criticism?
8- Do we love whom we love only for the sake of Allah, and dislike whom we dislike only for His sake?
If the answer is yes, then we should rejoice and be thankful to Allah for the true love for Him, and we should seek to always nourish this love in our hearts with righteous deeds that please Allah. If the answer of any of the above is in the negative, then our love for Allah is deficient and we need to work harder to achieve it.
How to Strengthen the Love for Allah in Our Hearts:
1- Perform the obligatory acts of worship with sincerity and humbleness, as this is the best way to get closer to Allah.
2- Perform nawafil as much as we can so that Allah loves us. Allah (SWT) says in the Sacred Hadith: “My slave does not seek to get closer to me with something better than what I have obligated for him, and my slave continues to get closer to me with supererogatory acts of worship until I love him.
3- Follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (SAW) and adhering to his Sunnah. Allah says what can be translated as, “Say, [O Muhammad], "If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful."
3- Love the believers and humble yourself to them and be patience with them.
4- Practice Islam with love and pride do not accept compromise about your deen.
Allah says, “O you who have believed, whoever of you should revert from his religion - Allah will bring forth [in place of them] a people He will love and who will love Him [who are] humble toward the believers, powerful against the disbelievers; they strive in the cause of Allah and do not fear the blame of a critic. That is the favor of Allah; He bestows it upon whom He wills. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.”
5- Love Allah and His Messenger more than you love anyone else. And give priority to the command of Allah and the command of his Messenger in case of conflict.
6- Love whom you love for the sake of Allah not for any worldly reason.
The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Whoever loves for Allah’s sake, dislikes for Allah’s sake, gives for Allah’s sake and withholds for Allah’s sake, then his Imaan is perfect.”
The Impact of Loving Allah on the Behavior of the Muslim:
Our love for Allah should be translated in actions and behaviors.
- The one who loves Allah cares for everyone and everything. He fulfills Allah’s commands of gentleness, kindness to others, regardless of whether he receives the same treatment or not. He helps others and gives them regardless of whether he gets compensated for that or not. Why? Because He loves Allah and wants to please Him
- He loves his parents, treats them with kindness, obeys them, shows humility to them, bears any hardship for them to make them happy. He always prays for them. He does so because he loves Allah and he knows that being thankful to them means thankfulness to Allah Himself.
Allah says, “And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], "uff," and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word. And lower to them the wing of humility out of mercy and say, "My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up [when I was] small." (al-Israa: 23-24).
- A Muslim who loves Allah cares for his wife, loves her, treats her with kindness and fulfills his duties to her regardless of whether he receives his rights or not. And so does a Muslim wife. Why? Because they love Allah and fulfill His commands whether they are compensated or not
If they both have a conflict their reference is the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger.
- A Muslim who loves Allah cares about his/her kith and kin. He loves them, cares for them, and supports them when they are in need and shares their happy occasions as well as their times of sorrow. He gives them without expecting any compensation even if they are not kind to him he is always nice to them. He seeks only to please Allah regarding them.
- A Muslim who loves Allah is humble to his fellow Muslims and fulfills his duties to them because he is connected with them with a strong bond: Slavery to Allah and obedience to Him. So he loves them due to that.
- He feels for the suffering of his fellow Muslims all over the world, prays for them, supports them and seeks to help and alleviate their suffering in every way possible. The words of his beloved Prophet (SAW) are always echoing in his ears: “The example of the Muslims in their loving one another, showing mercy to one another and showing sympathy to one another is like one whole body; if one organ of it has an ailment, the rest of the body shares the ailment through sleeplessness and fever.
- A Muslim who loves Allah shows kindness and caring to his neighbors, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims because Allah commanded so:
“Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side…”
“Jibril kept reminding of the neighbor's right, until I thought that he was going to give him a share of the inheritance.” (Bukhari and Muslim)
- A Muslim who loves Allah treats his fellow non-Muslim citizens and friends with kindness and justice and gives them da`wah, because Allah commands him to do so. In his ear echoes always the words of Allah:
“Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes - from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.”
