Love

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem
Allahumma salli 'alaa Sayyidinaa Muhammad wa 'aala aali Sayyidinaa Muhammad wa baarik wa sallam.

SubhaanAllah.

How Beautiful is Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala? Our minds cannot comprehend His Beauty. How Perfect is He? How Kind? How Loving? How Generous? How so extremely Merciful? There is no way we can ever understand. It is simply beyond 0ur small and meager (yet so blessed, as they are from Him) capabilities.

Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala, the Most Beautiful of those who have beauty, the most Loving of those who have love, the Most Kind of those who show kindness, He 'azza wa jal willed to bring us into existence simply so that we could know and love Him. He does not benefit one atom's weight. We are the ones who benefit, and not just benefit, but can experience the highest level of peace, satisfaction, joy, and ecstacy that any created being can ever experience, because He subhaanahu wa ta 'alaa made us human.

Then He gave us Islam. He gave us our sweet and most beautiful of all creation, most beloved of all creation, our Prophet Muhammad salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam. (What a beautiful name! The most beautiful of all the names of creation!) He gifted us with him salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam, the perfection in his acts, the sweetness in his speech, the mildness in his nature, the love in his every movement, the grace and beauty that only he, of all creation, attained to such an impeccable degree.

If He was to have stopped there --with the gift of knowledge of Him, of seeking His Nearness and Pleasure, and with the gift of His Beloved Messenger salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam-- we would have been infinitely more than satiated as human beings. Our desires would be met. Our yearnings attained. Our passions fulfilled. Were we to simply exist in a box with whatever minimum necessary for our physical survival, we would be kings. We would have everything we could ever need, for what more is there to desire and seek after than the Love, Company, and Pleasure of Allah, which is available at no monetary cost, dispensable to all who seek it?

Yet He willed to give us more: He gave us each other. He gave us our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, our best friends, our distant friends, our spouses, our children. He gave us our shuyukh. He gave us love for each of these people, love between us and among us. SubhaanAllah. Love is something so sweet, it is inexplainable. So beautiful, it is incomprehensible. So intense, it can cripple the physical senses and the intellectual capabilities. Love is something so real and true that people in the West have begun to think that it is the true end! The goal! The purpose! But, subhaanAllah, Allah is Most Wise and Giving, for He gave us this love as a means... it is our means to the True End, the True Goal, our True Beloved subhaanahu wa ta 'aala. He has given us this love, which standing alone is so sweet and mesmerizing, and then He has made that love a means through which we attain His Love! SubhaanAllah! How, then, can we fail to attain His Love, when He has given us love between spouses for His Sake? Love between siblings for His Sake? Love between parents and children for His Sake? SubhaanAllah, He has given us love for one's shaykh! One's guide! One's mentor! One's own, little piece of RasulAllah salAllahu 'alayhi wa sallam, so sweet and so precious, so utterly beloved. SubhaanAllah, it's like saying to someone, "I'll only give you this yummyyyy candy, if you allow me to give you $100 first." SubhaanAllah! He is giving us His Love through the already-so-sweet love for our shaykh! For our spouse! For our family! For our ummah! SubhaanAllah! And that Love that He gives... is inifinitely, exponentially more satisfying and fulfilling than these "earthly" (though perhaps they're not so earthly) loves, and even they can sometimes be enough to cripple us physically. So what does that say about True Love?

SubhaanAllah.