Love of Allah: Path to Success

Halil Necatioglu

Reprinted from Islam, November 1991

Among all loves and affections, the leading one, the most needed one, the most beautiful one, and the most high is the love of Allah. This is because Allah (SWT) has the most beautiful attributes. He is also the inventor, maker, doer, and creator of all. If one reflects on what he loves, he finds Almighty Allah (SWT), the Lord of the universe, and His Glory and Perfection in everything he loves.

Love of Allah is the main source of every good deed and beauty. It is the spring of eagerness, pleasure, and energy. Having the love of Allah, a person becomes a saint, a scholar, and a perfect man. Love of Allah makes one a good person, good child, good parent, good neighbor, and good friend. In contrast, without the love of Allah, a person remains immature, unlikable, insolent, inconsiderate, rebellious, oppressive, abusive, hard-hearted, and criminal.

The essence of Islam is the love of Allah. The love of Allah begets the love of the Prophet (peace be on him), love of Qur'an, love of faith, love of worship, love of charity, love of Muslims, love of brotherhood, love of humanity, love of art, and alike. Love of Allah gives forth forgiveness, mercy, patience, thankfulness, eagerness and desire, and energy to do good deeds.

The essence of Tasawwuf (true Sufism) is to have the love of Allah instilled in servants and have them pleased and loved by Allah. Tasawwuf attains this goal with delicate, detailed and profound techniques. It turns an ordinary person into a loyal lover and beloved of the Creator. Maulana's Mathnawi is a manifestation of love; the sound of the nay (reed) is a sound of love. So are Fuzuli's poems, Ibrahim Haqqi's Ma'rifetname, Yunus' hymns, and 'Itri's songs. Likewise, a worshipper's khalwat (privacy, seclusion for devotion), derwish's dhikr (remembrance), mujahid's jihad, soldier's attack on enemy, martyr's giving up his life, and veteran's victory medal are the manifestation of the love of Allah.

"Love is everything in the universe; knowledge is only a gossip of little significance."

A person should not assume big responsibilities before he is illuminated with divine love. If he does, he would destroy whatever he tries to restore and cause harm while trying to help. He would hurt people, break hearts, create chaos, cause people to fight. He would "get up with anger and sit down with harm." He would kill while trying to save life, make everything worse while trying to improve it. "A 'half-doctor' makes the patient lose his life."

The prerequisite of quality service to people is being a good servant of Allah. If a servant does not have loyalty to his Creator, he cannot provide any comfort or help to the creatures. His appearance may be glittering, but it has no significance if his inner-self is filthy and rotten. His words may be sweet and smooth; however, they have no importance if his intentions are evil.

The cause of most of our suffering is not the enemy, but the lazy, short-sighted, undeveloped Muslims. There have always been enemies since the very early times of Islam; nevertheless, true Muslims have won so many victories, established great civilizations, and ruled so many nations with justice and happiness despite these enemies.

The best quality for a person is the ability to recognize his shortcomings. The world of Islam must examine itself, identify the shortcomings, correct the mistakes, improve its methodology. Today, I feel ashamed and sad when I look at the state, words, and actions of people who claim to represent Islam. They start with wrong ideologies and work with inappropriate methods. They see friends as foes; they "cut the branch they sit on." Instead of winning hearts, they break them, earn the hatred of people. Their opponents increase in number and open new fronts for confrontation constantly.

Today, the way to spread, cultivate, and protect Islam and to have people love Islam goes through good deeds, patience, love and mercy, not stubbornness, fight, and war. A good Muslim is a person who has a strong faith without doubts, who thinks of earning the Hereafter, who is a giving, patient, merciful, forgiving, full of love and respect, good-mannered, sweet-tongued, kind, jolly, and charity-loving person. These good qualities must manifest themselves on him when he interacts with people. Our beloved Prophet (peace be on him) once said: "There is no goodness in a person who isolates himself, who cannot get along with anybody, who is not courteous, and who has no sense of friendship."

Today, every Muslim must have a look at himself, pay attention to his appearance, his clothes, his behavior, his words, and his actions. He must avoid giving a bad impression of Islam on others. Every Muslim must try to convey the message of Islam and have others have good feelings about Islam. He must pay extraordinary effort on improving his personality to portray a good example. If one desires to earn the pleasure of Allah, this is the way leading to success.