Since I had posted a couple of blog messages about two months ago regarding the controversy concerning the “love of God” in Islam (see here and here), I have been doing a bit more research into it, and have discovered an excellent resource on the subject which should dispel once for all the popular notion among radical Christian that the God of Islam is not a “God of Love”. It is a book titled, Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God, by William C. Chittick, who is a very well known and respected scholar of Islam. His website can be seen here, including a list of published books. It is a 520 page book, with a foreword on it written by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who is another very well-known and respected scholar of Islam. Here is a quote from the description found on the Amazon page retailing the book:
“The very heart of the Islamic tradition is love; no other word adequately captures the quest for transformation that lies at this tradition’s center. So argues esteemed professor of medieval Islam William C. Chittick in this survey of the extensive Arabic and Persian literature on topics ranging from the Qur’an up through the twelfth century. Bringing to light extensive foundational Persian sources never before presented, Chittick draws on more than a thousand pages of newly translated material to depict the rich prose literature at the center of Islamic thought.”
I haven’t read the book myself, as I have only just discovered it. But it looks like a good book, and worth a read. The following extracts from the foreword to the book written by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, as well as from the preface to the book written by the author, are obtained from the “Look inside” pages on the Amazon website. The first is a quote from the foreword to the book by Seyyed Hossein Nasr:
“Moreover, since God is the Ultimate Cause of all things, His Love for us precedes and is the cause that allows us to love Him. One of the greatest expositors in Islam of the meaning of love, Ahmad Ghazali, writes in his Sawanih that the distinction of human beings is that God loved them before they could love Him, according to the well-known Qur’anic verse yuhibbuhum wa yuhibbunah, ‘He loves them and [therefore] they love Him.’ The wa in Arabic, which usually means ‘and,’ implies implicitly in this verse ‘therefore.’ The verse does not say that they love God and therefore God loves them, but asserts that Love begins from the Divine side. Of course, from a human point of view we must exert our will to love God. Metaphysically, however, we cannot love God unless He loves us. The person whom God does not love because of his or her rebellion against Him or disobedience to His commands, will not find the love of God in his or her heart, although this love exists in the heart of all human beings by virtue of their being human, even if in many cases it remains hidden and latent, unbeknown to one whose heart has hardened.
“One may wonder why so many Western and modern writings on Islam neglect the central reality of love in Islamic piety and spirituality, and refuse to consider the relation between Islam and the unparalleled richness of Islamic literature devoted to love, not to speak of the role of love in everyday Islamic devotion. There are many reasons for this myopia, including the centuries-old Christian polemic that seeks to present Christianity as the religion based on love, in contrast to Islam, which, according to them, has the concept of the Divine only as the God of judgment and retribution. They speak as if there were no hell or purgatory in Christianity, and no forgiveness, compassion, or love in Islam.
“A thorough discussion of this important issue is not possible in this foreword, but suffice it to say that as a complete religion, Islam of necessity emphasizes also the importance of the fear of God in man’s religious life, in addition to love and knowledge. It was not a Muslim but the Bible that said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” a saying that is repeated almost word for word in a well-known hadith of the Prophet. To know God, we must love Him, and to love Him, we must fear Him. The fear of God must not be confused with the ordinary meaning of fear as a negative emotive state. As Abu Hamid Muhammad Ghazali said, when a person fears a creature, he runs away from it, but when that person fears the Creator, he runs toward Him. There is something in the soul of man that prevents him from attaining spiritual perfection. That something has to shrivel through fear of the Majesty of God and His Justice so that the higher elements of the soul can be freed to love God. From the human point of view there is the hierarchy of fear, love, and knowledge that the soul marching toward perfection must experience successively.”
The following quote is from the preface to the book written by its author, William C. Chittick:
“Not too long ago I exchanged emails with an old friend, a professor of religious studies who specializes in Hinduism. I happened to mention that I was writing a book on love, and he asked whether I was doing another study of Rumi. Here we have a well-informed scholar who has taught Islam in his survey courses, and guesses that someone writing about the Islamic understanding of love would be talking about Rumi. Those who know little or nothing about Rumi’s historical context, but have been exposed to the popular translations of his poetry, may well be surprised to hear that he was a Muslim. In any case, my point is simply that few people associate love with Islam.
“In contrast, those familiar with the histories and literatures of the Islamic peoples know that love has been the preoccupation of thousands of Muslim scholars and saints. It is so central to the overall ethos of the religion that if any single word can sum up Islamic spirituality—by which I mean the very heart of the Qur’anic message—it should surely be love. I used to think that knowledge deserved this honor, and that the orientalist Franz Rosenthal had it right in the title of his book, Knowledge Triumphant. Now I think that love does a better job of conveying the nature of the quest for God that lies at the [Islamic] tradition’s heart.”
And the following are some comments made by reviewers of the book printed on the back cover:
“This masterpiece is the finest scholarly study of love in Islam ever produced. Chittick’s brilliant theo-philosophical analysis encompasses all the great Islamic thinkers, and offers an urgent message not just for historians of religion, but for all Muslims and for those of every faith tradition.” —Stephen G. Post, Stony Brook University
“Rendering a vast Arabic and Persian repertoire into lucid English allows William Chittick to display how central love is in the Islamic tradition. Persian masters Maybudi and Sam‘ani open worlds of poetic theological reflection, detailing the origin of love, a life of love, and the goal of love.” —David Burrell, University of Notre Dame
“The classic Sufi poets of divine and human love—Rumi, Hafez, Attar and others—are by now familiar figures. William Chittick’s book beautifully introduces the earlier Persian (and Arabic) prose writers on love who provide the background for that love poetry, and whose ‘theology of love’ shaped the popular understanding of Islam through the centuries.” —James W Morris, Boston College
It is a 500 page book which quotes extensively from classical Islamic literature including the Qur’an, dispelling the notion that Islam is not a “religion of love”. Extremists, fanatics, and terrorists at one time or another have existed in every major religion, including Christianity. The Crusaders during the Middle Ages were nothing more than terrorists. They committed acts of terrorism against Muslims (and Jews) far worse than 9/11. When they conquered Jerusalem, they used to pick up little Muslim kids by their heels, and dash them against the walls and kill them. Those of them who were more dexterous, would try to fling them over across the walls of the city, and kill them that way. Stories of crusaders wading through the streets of the city knee deep in blood is no doubt an exaggeration; but it is an exaggeration based on fact. The slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in the city (Jews as well as Muslims) was enormous. Reportedly they burned down one synagogue with 300 Jews who had taken refuge in it. And it was all done in the name of religion. Here are some online resources for the crusades and their crimes:
Jewish Visual Library—The Crusades (1095-1291) What Were the Crusades . . . ? FIRST CRUSADE (1095-1100) Heilbrunn Timeline—The Crusades (1095–1291) Rivers of Blood: An Analysis of . . . Siege of Jerusalem (1099) History of the Jews and the Crusades
During the Middle Ages, for a thousand years Islam established one of the greatest civilizations in world history. Both in science and culture, art and literature, philosophy, theology and morals etc. (and freedom of worship) it excelled that of any other civilization up to that time. Christian Europe was backwards and primitive by comparison. The Muslims were the civilized ones. Christians provided the terrorists—not only against the Muslims, but also against the Jews. Now the Muslims have become the bad guys, and Christians have become the good guys. A religion that needs to constantly berate, disparage, and denigrate other faith traditions in order to ensure its own survival has lost credibility, and is not worth wasting time with. That is not how Jesus preached his gospel. He lived in a world of pagan religions, but he preached his gospel without feeling the need to make disparaging remarks about other faith traditions. He had no worries about disparaging the hypocritical Pharisees, who ended up crucifying him; but he had nothing evil or disparaging to say about the pagan religions of the Greeks and the Romans. His disciples and Apostles likewise did the same. Peter’s verdict was that “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35); and Paul’s verdict was the same, as expressed in Romans 2:6-16.
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