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Stages of love

Tabriat al Zimma by Sidi Fakhreddin


The Stages of Love.

Love between human beings is made up of nine stages, all of them purely emotional and spontaneous, while love between human beings and Allah is made of two degrees: Love and will.


The first stage of the love of Man for Allah starts with an initiative from Allah, who injects His love into the heart of the person whom He has chosen to favor. It is a love that the receiver did nothing to acquire or deserve. As Allah speaks to Moses: "And I bestowed upon you love from Me, that you may be brought up under My eye.”(Taha: 30.) It is Allah who has bestowed His love upon Moses, who only received it without having solicited nor encouraged this love. At this stage, you are called "Moheb" or "lover".

If however the love that Allah has laid in your heart is followed or accompanied by an action on your part, whose aim it is to develop this love, we would be talking about the second stage of divine love which is "will," because you have now chosen to meet that love with all your senses. So, you status changes from that of one who simply loves Allah to that of one who  now has the "will" or "desire" to develop this love, make it grow, and walk towards the source of this love. The Arabic term that describes this desire is "Irada", from which the term "murid" which means "one who desires," is derived.

So we just learned one of the meanings of the term  "Murid". It is one in whose heart the love of Allah was planted and who now desires for Allah to love him back.”


The stages of love felt by human beings towards each other are:

1- Attraction: it is the phase or the Heart begins to be attracted to the object of his love.
2- Feeling: Attraction begins to turn into Love
3- Desire: An even more intense degree than the previous one.
4- tenderness
5- Burning
6- Passion

Once this love has occupied all of the lover’s senses, we speak of an obsession, an infatuation and eventually a fusion of the souls where the both lovers are united and become inseparable.

In fact, the nine steps above are for between human beings and are not at all divine, except to the extent where we can say that human beings and the feeling of love that unite them are all Allah’s creation anyway. They are devoid of choice or will for no human can “inject” his or her love into the heart of another.


The two stages of divine love, “Love and will, are actually of a purely divine nature because Allah said in the Qur'an: "Allah will create people whom He will love and who will love Him "or the hadith qudsi:. "And my subject shall continue to seek My favor with nawafels until I love him."

Love and will combined are the domain of Allah. This love starts with an initiative from Allah who will throw this love into the Heart of the chosen subject. The subject then receives this love and “wants” to meet Allah, thus becoming a "Murid". But Love and Will are in fact both Allah’s property. It was Allah who has chosen to plant the seed of His love into the person’s heart, and it is also He who chooses to inspire the Murid to walk towards Him.

And so, thanks to Allah’s will and His love, Allah and the Murid shall eventually come together at a stage called "Al-wedd" or state of "Acceptance and Affection". Allah is "Al Wadud," well-loving and beloved. He accepts his chosen subject’s affection and returns it. Reciprocity is inherent to that stage because it affects both parties as Allah says in the Holy Qur'an: "And among His signs is that He created you for you spouses that you may live in tranquility with them and He has put between you affection and mercy”. (Romans: 20). 

Affection is therefore the most sublime stage of Love because it implies reciprocity. Nothing is greater than love for love is the burning flame of Allah.

So understand well and may Allah guide you and reward you.

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