Open Discussions/ Gulf Cultural Club
Revd Suzanne Vernon-Yorke (Church of England priest)
Rianne ten Veen (Environmental activist)
Fr Patrick Morrow (Church of England, former HE and prison chaplain)
Dr Isa Jahangir (Principal, Islamic College)
Love in the religious sense is not confined to the sentimental or emotional feelings among people. It goes much deeper to take practical manifestations. The divine message of love implies embracing the values of the loved in addition to the emotional attachment. True love of God implies adopting His commands that aim at leading mankind to perfection. To love Jesus also implies readiness to implement his commands. This needs spiritual transformation from within to be capable of undergoing psychological change and readiness to inner cleanliness. This will lead to the creation of God’s kingdom, the Utopia of people of religion and the dreamland of the purified.
Tuesday 15th December 2020
Suzanne Vernon York: Today’s theme comes from the Bible verse in the New Testament John chapter 14, verse 15. Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments”. If we all interpreted our religious texts in the same way, the world wouldn’t look like it does right now. With that in mind, I want to say that I’m only speaking this evening from my perspective and from my interpretation of my religious texts. I won’t claim to speak for my co-religionists, for all who are Christian. My church are familiar with my very tenuous links on Sundays in my sermons, when we hear the Bible reading and then I ask them to find the link with my visual aid. I’ve brought a carrot this evening, as my visual aid. I’ll give you a moment to work out a link with the theme… I’m sure you’re all familiar with the idea of how to move a donkey, using either a carrot or a stick.
Many people have a view that God has a bunch of rules for people to stick to and the threat of bad consequences here on earth or in heaven is the stick to beat people with as their motivation for sticking to the rules. Even the word “commandments” sounds like people being told they have to follow rules. But from my Christian perspective, in my understanding of the nature of God, the motivation is much more from the carrot rather than the stick angle.
The carrot held before the donkey entices it forwards. The invitation is to something tasty, to something healthy, to something nourishing. To seek to keep the commandments of God is to be invited to move forward, on the promise of something healthy and nourishing.
As one who would say they not only believe in God, but try to live in the way God invites me to, keeping God’s commandments, is a direct response to Jesus’ invitation, as one who loves him.
So what are these commandments? In the Bible, in the book of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 35-40 it says this:
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him? “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it; ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Now, here’s something you might not know, Jesus was bad at maths! Jesus said there were two great commandments and there are really three:
Love God.
Love neighbour.
Love self.
Each play a vital role in a healthy human and healthy society. We can look around us and at the world and see that we’re not there, this is not our reality. The bit missed off the printed version of my bio said, “She’s an expert in trying”.
Seeking to follow or live these three commandments, is an invitation into God’s intention for us, and an inspiration to motivate our living. All three commandments, or invitations, if you like, are both deeply spiritual and entirely practical, and all three are connected.
To attempt to keep these commandments will produce an inner change and an outer one. There will be change from within and this will lead to change around us. Each one of the commandments flows into and affects the other. The starting place is significant. The first of the commandments is an invitation to love God. A lot depends on who you think God is, the nature of God. For me, God is love. To start with, to follow this commandment is a belief in someone greater than I. A consequence of this following, will be a growth in humility. Recognising who I am in relation to who God is. The created relating to the Creator. There will also be a desire to serve the greater good. There will be a desire to care for all God has created – the whole of creation. There will be a desire to seek the will of God and to love all God loves.
This commandment gives me perspective – if I seek to love God and look at the world and others through God’s eyes, it will lead to love in action. This is assuming I see God as loving in the first place.
The second commandment is an invitation to love your neighbour. Who is that? Who is my neighbour? It’s everyone, of every colour, nation, religion, every atheist, those of every political view, gender or sexuality. It’s an absolute inclusive invitation to love every single other citizen of our shared earth, not just those who are like me or even those who like me, it includes those who may not like me at all. We know it can be hugely challenging to love those who don’t love us.
The third commandment is an invitation to love yourself. If I am invited to love my neighbour as I love myself, that means I have to love myself. It means understanding I am loved by God. The security of that knowledge means I am free to be me; free not to compete with others or compare myself with others, but to accept myself; to work on my own health and wellbeing; to process my hurts and disappointments so they don’t come out in unhealthy ways and hurt others. I have no need to fear others or experience them as a threat.
Each of the three commandments flows into and is connected to the other invitations or commandments. And so you see, when Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments”, it wasn’t an invitation to have a miserable life following rules, like has sometimes been supposed, but it was, and still is, an invitation to be radically transformed by the healing love of God, from the depths of my being, which in turn will transform my relationships with others, and contribute to the transformation of the whole world, in its journey to be reconciled to the one who made it all.
Rianne ten Veen: I am very happy to be here. I feel a humbled to be in the company of the other panellists who have lot more formal religious education. I have done so homework and was brought up almost evangelically secular. That path did not very much suit me so I became a Muslim in the end. I have lots of plants as they are an environmental creation that inspires me.
I also very much appreciate the topic of love. I think in this time it is so easy to despair of the direction that the planet is going in and its inhabitants and I like very much to keep my commandments. This morning there was a tweet by Saint Ethelburgars which put it really interestingly – if we allow ourselves to become hopeless than we become part of the problem. That is very much something that motivates me. It is part of much religion but I have the same disclaimer that Susan had which is that I am speaking on behalf of myself and not anyone else. There will be lots of different people who interpret Islamic teachings differently – some abusing them for all kinds of geo political or misinformed, uneducated reasons. I hope I have constructive ideas of those otherwise I would not have felt comfortable becoming a Muslim.
The title of the discussion is if you love me keep my commandments. It is a bit like the carrot and stick version. On becoming a Muslim I very much heard that this is haram and this is haram but that is not what I read when I considered becoming a Muslim. What are all these prohibitions. Certain things are prohibited but these are not even things that I am considering doing – terrorist stuff. Not my thing. Never considered it and I am never going to consider it. It is not about a straight jacket. It is about feeling so blessed about all of these things around us.
None of us did anything to this planet for being here. Especially being like a goldie locks planet, Mars is too cold, Venus is too hot, Earth is just right. But what are we doing with it. We are sometimes behaving as if it is all ours. I find that really difficult to understand. God created creation for everyone not just the ones who came before us but also the ones who come after us so how come we are behaving as if its only for us and behaving as if there is no tomorrow in that sense.
There is a verse I find very attractive which is Chapter 6 verse 165 about humans being guardians of creation. That is not just some fancy honorary title, okay we are the guardians of creation. It is an actual task that we should actually do. If you are in employment in this world and you mess up at some point your employer is going to say maybe we should part ways. In the religious sense I find that God is very open minded. He gives us lots of opportunities. God does not sack us but gives us bits and pieces and reminds us that maybe we are not going in the right direction to give us opportunities in this life to rectify ourselves and not wait until the day of judgement and say you have made a mess of it. Maybe you are going to this direction.
In this life we are given tests and opportunities to improve. It is also interesting how we take those lessons. Do we say this is a flood which happened to the people of Bangladesh – it has nothing to do with me. Why not? Aren’t the people of Bangladesh fellow humans. Shouldn’t we take those as lessons as well. The people of Bangladesh are getting increasing floods because of our environmental foot print. We are living beyond earth’s capacity. We are living as if there is no tomorrow as if there are no future generations after us. Maybe we should reflect more.
Sometimes I hear the criticism that that makes life difficult. When I go shopping I have to think about everything. What is this life for? If you want to pass any exam you do not just sit on the couch and say oh yeah wouldn’t it be nice to pass this exam. We don’t do that. We study, we read books, we practise, check with our friends to see if we got things right. We go to a teacher to see whether we need any extra practise and then we pray and hope that we will do well in the exam.
As people of faith we believe that this life is a test, and not just any test. It is much bigger and more important than a driving test or GCSE or your bachelors or masters. It is going to take time to do well. God wants us to do well and to feel that everything around us is blessed.
What I refer to often is that being a guardian of creation is not just an honorary title – it is also almost as if we are behaving like hooligans – my team is better than yours. That seems quite strange to me because in defending our faith we are behaving in a way which is so contrary to the teachings of our faith.
With all the prophets we have there wouldn’t be such competition like I am better than you. You feel inspired by your prophet and you want to do well because of that but not in terms of putting the other one down. You can have positive competition in the sense that I want to do more good deeds tomorrow than yesterday. So healthy competition with yourself and maybe also encouraging your brother or your sister in humanity by saying you are doing well – maybe tomorrow you can do even better but not in a negative sense like we currently often see it. The attitude that my team is better than yours and you better convert to my team or otherwise you are not worthy of anything.
I find that approach quite depressing sometimes but then again I am still happy that I found faith because it gives me hope that instead of me being asked or feeling responsible to do everything I feel that I am being asked to make the most of the gifts I have been given so on the day of judgment we will not have the same exams. Someone who is illiterate will be asked what they managed to do with their gifts and opportunities. Someone who is a president or prime minister of a big country will get a different test. I feel very much I have to challenge myself and a term that comes there both in terms of love and striving around jihad.
Oftentimes when people hear the word ‘jihad’ they see it as a call to war. That is abuse of the term and laziness on the part of journalists because the big jihad is internal striving to have less hate and more love – get rid of our jealousy and our not wanting others to do better. Get rid of those negatives inside us. That is the big jihad and the small jihad is only defence of the right of others which are all very important. But if we all focus on getting rid of all our negative stuff like jealousy things will be much better.
Also in terms of love thy neighbour and love others another verse I find very inspiring in that sense Chapter 49 verse 13: O mankind we created you from a male and a female and made you into tribes and nations that you may know one another. It is not O Pakistanis, O British, O Dutch or whatever – it is O mankind. Not O Muslim, O Christians but O Mankind. Our brothers and our sisters in humanity as I read it is everyone whatever the packaging. We cannot say they are on the wrong side of the border of they are different shape or flavour or whatever. God created all of us so we may know one another. It does not need to mean that we agree with one another but we can still respect and love each other for the sake of being fellow humans.
For me love is not just restricted to the human species but the whole of creation. Another verse that very much inspired me is chapter 6, verse 38: There is not an animal crawling on the earth or a fly in the air that has communities. The rest of creation do not have free will. They just love and praise God by being themselves. A tree provides shade and nesting space just by standing there. It does not require a manual.
It is only the human species that has free will and therefor the option to make choices. So at least we have a manual from God to abide by or not. That guardianship of humanity is not just loving our fellow humans whatever nation, or tribe they are from but also the animals in that sense. If we chop a tree we are chopping something that God has created. Not just that tree but also the ability of that tree to provide shelter for animals and other species as well.
So we can look at it practically if we kill everything on earth it will not be habitable for us. The planet has existed before humans came. It is not just a matter of saving the planet for the planet. That is in God’s hands but keeping it habitable for us as humans. Even if you say I don’t understand climate change etc I believe scientists have been gifted by God with brains and they have explored things and studied stuff and come to their consensus that climate change is happening and it is caused by human kind so we as humans are ruining the planet through subsidising fossil fuels and things like that.
Even if you say I don’t want that let us just feel the love that God has given us in terms of benefitting in this life and being humble in that. Not taking more than our fair share of that. I love the theme of love and very much we have similarities between our different faiths and it is about striving for the good and not running away from potential punishment.
Fr Patrick Morrow: The life of faith is a life of love for God, and a bathing in Gd’s love for us. This is a Christian understanding. Christians not infrequently make the mistake of thinking this is uniquely Christian. Relatedly, it’s no secret that there are Christian traditions which contrast “Law” with “Grace”, and even “Love” with “commandments”. So, at its worst, Christian apologetics can say “Grace and Love are what we Christians are about; Law and commandments and rules are what the religions are about.” I don’t wish to do anything to promote this dichotomy; quite the reverse. I name it, only because it is out there, sometimes even among Christians who are sensitive to interfaith work. Perhaps my life’s greatest blessing has been the interfaith involvement I have enjoyed. This empowers me to work from the basis that people of all faiths (inasmuch as they speak of Gd – which is a real qualification) will say that Gd’s love for us and Gd’s command to us (or demand from us) form one blended whole. I find I am thinking of the intertwined pattern of DNA.
If we ask: “What is the principal source for the Christian understanding that divine command and love are intimately related?” there is one clear answer (there is a right answer!). It is the Books of the Bible attributed to John, the “Johannine” tradition. Truly, it can be said to be a refrain. Let me run it past you.
From John’s Gospel:
13.34 Jesus says: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
14.15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
14.21 “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me…”
15.10 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…”
15.12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
From the (brief) First Letter of John:
2.3 “Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments.”
2.7 “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment…
2.8 Yet I am writing you a new commandment…
2.10 Whoever loves a brother or sister…”
3.23 “And this is his commandment: that we should believe [trust] in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them.
4.21 “The commandment we have from him is this: those who love Gd must love their brothers and sisters also.”
5.2 “By this we know that we love the children of Gd, when we love Gd and obey his commandments
5.3 “For the love of Gd is , that we obey his commandments…”
Nowhere else in the Bible is there such a close coupling, and you may have gathered that more than a couple of ideas are involved. Commandment and love are coupled, yes; but love of Gd is also coupled with love of the brothers and sisters; and all that is coupled with an abiding, a resting, a remaining in Gd, Jesus, and Spirit; and Gd, Jesus, and Spirit abiding, resting and remaining with us.
There are also two further links which this summary does not bring out, but which apply. One is that all of this is coupled with a promise of prayer answered (one way or another). The other is even more striking. It is the coupling of all the above with the declaration that the Father commands the Son (Jesus), and the Son obeys the commands of the Father. This is especially pertinent in a Christian-Muslim encounter of course. If Christians may want to insist that in John we learn that Jesus is the Word of Gd who is with Gd and is Gd (1.1), they (we) should not elide the idea that Jesus is also the one who received commandments from the Father, and who freely obeys (10.18; 12.49; 14.31; 15.10 – another “refrain”, you see).
I’d now like to take the principal text on this network of concerns, as a case study. This comes from the long, long discourse which Jesus has during his last meal. That discourse is unique in itself among the Gospels (it lasts from Chapters 13-17). Within that unique discussion (speech, really), Jesus gives a Farewell Discourse (Chapter 14). In it, Jesus is clear that he is going away to prepare a place for his disciples (v 2). I also won’t hide from you that this is the context in which Jesus utter the words which can be problematic in interreligious dialogue (14.6): “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
I now offer a rather over-literal translation of the Greek on one passage (John 14.12-21) to give a sense of the underlying Greek.
| 12 ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμέ, τὰ ἔργα ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ κἀκεῖνος ποιήσει, καὶ μείζονα τούτων ποιήσει, ὅτι ἐγὼ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου πορεύομαι, 13 καὶ ὅ,τι ἂν αἰτήσητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, τοῦτο ποιήσω, ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ υἱῷ. 14 ἐάν τι αἰτήσητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐγὼ ποιήσω. 15 Ἐὰν ἀγαπᾶτέ [pres. subj.] με, τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐμὰς τηρήσατε [fut. Ind.], 16 καὶ ἐγὼ ἐρωτήσω τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἄλλον παράκλητον δώσει ὑμῖν, ἵνα μένῃ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, 17 τὸ Πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ ὁ κόσμος οὐ δύναται λαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐ θεωρεῖ αὐτὸ οὐδὲ γινώσκει αὐτό· ὑμεῖς δὲ γινώσκετε αὐτό, ὅτι παρ’ ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται. 18 οὐκ ἀφήσω ὑμᾶς ὀρφανούς· ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς. 19 ἔτι μικρὸν καὶ ὁ κόσμος με οὐκέτι θεωρεῖ, ὑμεῖς δὲ θεωρεῖτέ με, ὅτι ἐγὼ ζῶ καὶ ὑμεῖς ζήσεσθε. 20 ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ γνώσεσθε ὑμεῖς ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί μου καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν ὑμῖν. 21 ὁ ἔχων τὰς ἐντολάς μου καὶ τηρῶν αὐτάς, ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαπῶν με· ὁ δὲ ἀγαπῶν με ἀγαπηθήσεται ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, καὶ ἐγὼ ἀγαπήσω αὐτὸν καὶ ἐμφανίσω αὐτῷ ἐμαυτόν. | 12 Amen. Amen. I say to you all: the one placing trust in me, the works that I myself am doing, that one will do, and greater than these will they do, because I myself am going to my Father. 13. And whatsoever you lot might ask in my name, that I will do, in order that the Father might be glorified in the Son. 14 If you lot might ask for anything in my name, I myself will do [it]. 15 If you lot might love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I myself will ask the Father and another Parakletos (One-Standing-Alongside-You) he will give to you, in order that [that one] might abide with you all, unto the age. 17 The Spirit of the truth, which the world is not able to receive, because it does not see it and it does not know it; but you yourselves do know it, because alongside you it abides, and among you it will be. 18 I will not leave you orphaned.I am coming to you lot. 19 Yet a little while, and the world does not see me any longer. But you yourselves do see me because I live, and you yourselves will live. 20 In that day you yourselves will knowthat I am in my Father, and you lot are in me, and I am in you lot. 21 The one having my Commandments and keeping them, that one is the one loving me.Now the one loving me will be loved by my Father, and I myself will love that one, and I will reveal to that one myself. |
So far, so harmonious. So far, so combined. Commandment and love intertwined. But! But since this is Scripture, it is not quite that simple, and we have a bigger task, that of interpretation.
So let me raise three problems or questions:
- The word for love used here is distinctive. It is agapao (verb) or agape (noun), and in Christian circles much ink has been spilled, debating whether and how this differs from other love/loves, in particular eros. “Eros” does mean romantic and sexual love (the “erotic”, but its meaning is wider. We might think of it as natural love, love-as-desire, whatever the object of desire. So is agape utterly disinterested love, even miraculous love? The text itself doesn’t tell us.
- I have to be honest, and note that, with all the couplings and interrelationships I mentioned earlier on, one coupling is absent. There is no coupling of (a) love for the brothers and sisters within your community with (b) love for others outside your community, with love for human beings as such, or creatures or the world as such. Don’t get me wrong! Love of neighbour, of stranger, of anyone in need, and of enemy are all Christian virtues/demands, of course. But we do not draw these imperatives from the Johannine texts that relate commandment to love. Why not? Some say – and there’s a decent cumulative argument to be made – that the community John was addressing was itself so beleaguered that it simply did not have the “headspace” to be concerned with loving those outside their own needy huddle. In any event, this absence is best named.
- It is actually as hard to know what “command(ment)” means in the context of John, as well. Of course, it is a powerful idea that our loving must always have practical traction, is about what we do. The problem is that Jesus in John does not really give a practical command. He doesn’t say: “If you love me, you will pray, baptise, take communion, fast”; nor does he say: “If you love me, you will care for those at the mercy of others, feeding the hungry, challenging the powerful”. Not in John. Two interpretations suggest themselves, pointing in rather different directions:
- John believes Jesus does want love to be practical, grounded, not just an emotion or an abstraction, but the form of the practical incarnation of love is not to be prescribed. Stick with other followers of Jesus, and through doing what they do (whatever they do), you will learn the practical element of love for your real-life context.
- John knew that those who heard his Gospel already had access to at least one of the other Gospels. So he knew that people would “flesh out” the talk of commandments he brings by what Jesus says elsewhere in other Gospels. Chronologically, this is plausible. Mark’s Gospel (almost certainly the oldest) is normally dated around 70 CE; John’s Gospel not earlier than 90 CE.
In sum then, nothing is more Christian than hearing Jesus say: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”, and yet knowing what these two central terms mean is not as easy as we may at first think. Thank Gd for continuing dialogue, on this, and on all that we share in common, and indeed on all matters where we diverge, the better to provoke each other to holiness.
Dr. Isa Jahangir: Good evening and salam aleikukm. I hope that everyone is doing well and thank you very much for organising such a beautiful event on this online platform. Let me start with a poem which is not directly related to love but it can be related to love and to something which is very hot. It says in Farsi that you have to be burning if you want to see how I feel. You can’t have the taste of burning by just looking at something which is burning. That is one of the functions of love. It makes you speechless and probably the best language of love is silence because that is the language of God. If you want to put it into words the things which you receive and understand and perceive through love if you want to put in the form of words it could be misinterpreted.
This is one of the issues which we have in Muslim history. Great Muslim mystics who have chosen to reach the truth and God and certainty through love like Massoud Al Halaj, Rumi and others because they had acquired a special vision after that spiritual and love-based journey. When they wanted to talk about that vision – when they wanted to convey what they had seen and what they had felt experienced they could not put it in the right words. What could be acquired through love sometimes cannot be transferred and communicated in words and language because language is limited but love is unlimited.
In the Islamic tradition love is seen as a very natural inclination towards affection, towards the absolute truth and that is why it is said by Muslim philosophers and mystics that love is inclusive. In the verse O Mankind Muslim mystics and philosophers sometimes go beyond that. Mullah Sadr mentions that the whole movements of the world are based on love. It is not only humans. It is a motion which he says in his language. The movements and developments and the motion of the whole of existence and creation is based on love. He mentions, and it is not only him, that love is not only between humans. It is in the whole of creation. Love is the matter of creation.
As Rumi says: We are born out of love and love is the mother of all of us. It brings that inclusiveness and it puts away all the exclusivity and narrow mindedness and excluding this side or that side. The more you go, you get close to the origin of love which is God himself. The more your heart becomes like an ocean accepting everyone and everything and the better you can have relations and communication not just with humans but with all creatures.
So that is why Rumi says love is the bridge between you and everything. When love comes it can link you to the world outside you. But you have to be able to prepare yourself for that love, for that mystery for the light of God. So love comes inside you. When it comes inside you it transforms you. It makes you ready to be approachable by everyone, by all sects, by all religions, by all people.
It makes you basically to be and to seem and to sound clear, transparent, simple and very trustworthy. There is no dualism in that. It is all transparency, clarity and simplicity which is in the law.
In the Quran the most sacred book of the Muslims we have this word ‘hub’ and mahabat which has been mentioned many times and has been translated as love. In Arabic there is also another word, ishaq. That is also translated as love. Hub is the normal levels of love which is between human beings but ishaq is the highest level. It is the peak of love which could be between a human being and the creator which is the source of love: God himself.
It is interesting that the Quran has not spoken and does not speak about love in the word of ishaq but too much has been spoken in the Quran with the terminology of hub. Probably the most important of them is the verse 156 in the second chapter. Those who are believers the love that they have to God and to the creator, the origin of love. Ishadu is the highest, have the most love to god.
Again in the interpretations and commentaries of this verse of the Quran there are traditions from the imams and Prophet Muhammad which say that the higher forms of love are even higher than the love which could be between a man and his or her parents, two human beings. That higher form of love which could be between man and God.
Moving towards the traditions and words of the Prophet and also the companions of the Prophet and the imams of the Ahl al Bayt in Shia Islam a lot has been said about the word hub and ishaq. Both have been translated into the main concept of love.
Even in the books of hadiths and the traditions of the Prophets and the imams we have chapters with the title of Love for the sake of Allah. It is one of the main categories. Not loving God which is extremely important but loving for the sake of God. Loving others, loving other people but the benchmark is for the sake of Allah.
A lot can be said about what it means loving for the sake of Allah. Basically it means that probably it means that the main route and direction should be God himself but all other manifestations and ramifications of love should be in the same way, should be based on that absolute truth which is the existence of God, of the creator himself. If your love of anyone is based on this one, if you can assess your love to see how much basically you love something because everyone is part of that original love because everyone has been created from that love. Love for the sake of God is genuine love. We do have this in numerous books and in numerous traditions.
We also have this tradition in Islam which asks is religion anything apart from love. So two themes : loving for the sake of God and religion in love itself. There is a third element in the hadiths which I would like to share with you and that is imam – faith.
I would like to share with you beautiful words from the Prophet Mohammed. He says you will not be able to enter paradise until you have faith. So the condition to go to heaven is to have that faith. But you will not be able to have that faith until you have muhaba. Muhaba comes from hub but it is not a love between you and your Lord but also between you and your Lord and others. It is that communal kindness, that social affection, that social caring, that social love.
This is very important. Even iman and faith cannot be attained unless you can sort out your issues with the manifestations of God, with the creatures of God. So as long as you are not able to establish a very smooth kindness based and love based an affection based connection with all creatures of God you will not be able to attain that iman which is the condition to enter heaven.
So if you want to see how much you love God see how much you have an open heart to everyone. See how much you have that readiness inside you to love others, to welcome others, to receive others and to love others for the sake of God.
I would like to share with you a saying from the Hadith Al Qudsi. It is the word of God but not in Quran. God says beware that my love is compulsory for those who are loving each other for the sake of me. My mercy is for the sake of those who are making friends for the sake of me.
This is very important in the Islamic tradition. This connection with iman with love has been highlighted in Islamic mysticism. The most influential element in spreading Islam was Islamic art and Islamic mysticism. That was the language which contributed a lot to reaching the moral and spiritual message of Islam to the whole world. Love is the language of the universe. It is the universal language. So that is why the mystics in Islam have emphasised love a lot and there are schools of Islamic mysticism which are based on love. There are other schools which are based on asceticism, and fear of God.
I would like to share one book from Ghazili. He was very close to the Abbasid kings. He left everything and went to Syria and Palestine .and he wrote a few books. He said I wanted to reach peace of mind and peace of heart. I tried the logical discussion but I did not find that certainty. Philosophy was good but it was all about rationality and reasoning. Until I found the way of the heart, the Sufis, mystics I found if there is a way to God, to certainty and truth that should be the way of the heart.
The sixth Imam, Imam Sadiq says that if you want to understand God, even if you try your best if you try to identify God which through your intellect that is the God that is created by your mind. That is not a reality.
When Junayd of Baghdad was asked how did he find God he said I found God through God. He said reason is limited. Have something which is unlimited which cannot be conceptualised by something which is limited.
Suzanne Vernon York is vicar of a church in West London and is currently undertaking a PhD in Interfaith, Gender, and Inclusion. She is a big fan of God, people and chocolate, and has been attempting to “keep my commandments” since 1993.
Ms Rianne C. ten Veen (LLM MA MSc PGDip PGCert) is a humanitarian aid worker, trainer and facilitator with research, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue specialisms. She focuses on intercultural/ disaster-related/ environment/ teaching/ development projects. She was a Board Member at Groundwork W-Midlands, former Trustee at TreeAid and several years a board member of Birmingham Council of Faiths. She is a member of the management team of Islamic Foundation for Ecology & Environment Sciences (IFEES), and co-founder of ‘Faith and Climate Change’. In 2009, she published a ‘save cash & planet’ style book from the Islamic perspective: ‘199 ways to please God, how to (re-)align your daily life with your duty of care to Creation’ and set up Green Creation. After 15 years in the UK, she now lives in The Netherlands turning her garden into a haven for wildlife and edibles.
Father Patrick Morrow is a priest in the Church of England, ministering in Newham, East London, the most religiously diverse local authority in the country. He has a longstanding love of interfaith relations, and has worked for the Council of Christians and Jews. He is currently Secretary to the Theology Committee of the International Council of Christians and Jews.
Dr. Isa Jahangir (B.A, M.A (Sociology), Ph.D (Culture and Communication) has held positions as principal, headteacher, executive head, chair of academic board and head of department for over 25 years in the United Kingdom and overseas. He has been actively involved in the development and establishment of educational programs for youth in the UK and Europe. He is currently the principal of the Islamic college of London, in collaboration with University of Middlesex.
