What is Love?
I am soon to be twenty-three years old. Having passed through adolescence, I have now reached the age of understanding. After reflecting on all the difficulties, worries, and trials I have faced in the past years of my life, one truth emerges with complete clarity: that a person should spend the most precious asset of their life not on temporary pleasure or fleeting attraction, but on a higher and lasting purpose.
And that purpose is the pleasure of Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him). Because this is the love that refines a person, elevates their character, and shows them the path to success in both this world and the hereafter. In fact, this love is the foundation and measure of all other loves.
But as a human being, it is natural for emotions to arise in the heart. Sometimes it happens that a glimpse, a conversation, or a simplicity of a girl draws the heart towards her. A state overcomes the heart, and it feels like this is everything. Apparently, this love seems different from the love of Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him), but the truth is that if this love remains within the limits of Sharia, it can also become a path to reaching Allah.
Because the love that saves a person from sin, teaches them to protect their gaze, refines their morals, bestows patience, and leads them towards a pure relationship like marriage, that love actually moves towards the pleasure of Allah. Such love does not lead a person astray, but makes them responsible, refines their character, and brings them closer to Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him).
Therefore, the real test of love is not on whom the heart has fallen, but where the love that has entered the heart is taking us. If that love promotes honor, respect, and goodwill while remaining within the bounds of Sharia, then that love becomes a means of reform rather than corruption.
After that, it is necessary to give precedence to the commands of the Sharia in every situation, to protect one's self-respect, not to let go of morals and etiquette, and to be a cause of ease and peace for one another, not of worry and trouble.
And when Allah bestows the blessing of marital life upon someone, then this should always be kept in mind that just as we have one Qibla in worship, similarly in marital life, we should have only one Qibla—that is, the pleasure of Allah.
In the end, this reality should never be obscured that this world is mortal. Wealth, fame, status, even children will not go with us. What remains is only intention, action, and the love that is for Allah.
May Allah grant us all such love that brings us closer to Him, not further away from Him. Amen.
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From: Muhammad Fida Al-Mustafa Qadri
PG Student: Darul Huda Islamic University, Kerala