HADITH THIRTY THREE: BE MODERATE IN YOUR LOVE
The Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم said, «Love your beloved moderately, perhaps they will become hated to you someday. And hate whom you hate moderately, perhaps they will become your beloved someday.»
Reported by al-Tirmidhi (1997) and al-Albani declared it sahih (Sahih al-Jami‘, 178)
Commentary
Love and hate tend to run to extremes, and they are destructive when they do. The love of Allah can anchor our emotions and temper our responses, saving us from bringing much harm to ourselves.
Guiding our emotions
Is it true that “all we need is love”? Is it the panacea to our ills? If we could only love each other—the saying goes—all of our problems would go away! Now, we can all agree on how transformative love can be. But is there not a difference between love as raw and untempered emotion and love enlightened by Allah’s guidance and revelation?
We run into several problems when we recommend love as a self-sufficient solution. The object of our love, its intensity, duration, and what love entails are all left ambiguous. The fundamental questions of why we love and how we know we are in love remain unanswered. The assumption is that love is good and knows everything: once you fall in love, all of our questions will be answered, and all of our problems will disappear. It is romantically appealing because of the sweeping grand promises it makes and the warmth the promise of love provides. And if you are young or a hopeless romantic, you want to believe this.
But time and experience tell us otherwise, that love is insufficient on its own. We fall in love and then fall out of it. We believe we found our soulmate only to discover later that we were wrong (we discussed the flaws of the soulmate idea previously). Love can make us act foolishly, even destructively. Crimes of passion are committed in the name of love. Unattained love leads to desperation and resentment. Love on its own does not
have all the answers.
Love as raw emotion needs guidance. If love is too intense, it could wither away. We could love someone so much that it ends up making us both weary. The way we express our love may also undermine it (e.g. suspicion arising from extreme jealousy). Or we could love the wrong person. Coveting someone’s spouse could end a marriage. Love could also be laden with unrealistic expectations. I may fall in love with the idea
of this person—what I want them to be—but not with the real person. Love has the potential for beauty, but it is also messy. If it is not supported by wisdom, it will disappoint.
Excessive love and hate
The nature of emotions is that they tend to run to extremes. And they run from one extreme to the other. We can love someone with all our hearts and then hate them with all our hearts. This is the vicissitude that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was cautioning against in the Hadith. The instability of love, therefore, requires religious and experiential wisdom to balance it. If emotions run our lives and dictate our reactions without moderation, they can be very destructive. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said:
“Let not your love be an obsession or your hate a perishment.” Zayd ibn Aslam asked, “How is that?” He replied, “When you love, you obsess like a child; and when you hate, you wish for your companion to perish.”
Sahih al-Adab al-Mufrad (1322)
The two seemingly opposite reactions are connected. The one who allows their love to grow into an obsession is the same person who allows their dislike to devolve into intense hatred. In both cases, emotions have the upper hand, not any religious concern for piety and justice. It is important for us to love in moderation. When an emotional attachment becomes an obsession, it blinds us and weakens us. We would see then
only what we want to see, and we would do everything to get it. When we fail, these intense emotions are channeled as great frustration and anger. This bounce from love and admiration to hatred and the desire to harm is not healthy. This is not true love.
The story of Yusuf beautifully encompasses the various types of love and attractions. It deserves a more reflective study and the contemplation of those who are interested in
understanding love better. It teaches us, among many things, the harm extreme love leads to. It was the wife of al-‘Aziz who fell in such obsessive love with Yusuf. Allah said about her love for Yusuf:
His love has filled her heart.
Yusuf (Q12:30)
Though she was married, she allowed her admiration for Yusuf to grow beyond the proper bounds until she was willing to risk everything for it. But what did she do when Yusuf rebuffed her advances? She threatened him with jail, suggested he be jailed to her husband, and that was where Yusuf ended up for several years. Is this love? Or is it an obsession? Scholars suggested that her heart was empty of Allah’s love and reverence since she was a disbeliever. Such a heart is open for the development of obsessive attachments and dependence. It also has no qualms about doing all it can to possess what it loves or destroy it when it cannot. The heart of the believer is the opposite of such a heart. In a devout heart, no love can grow bigger than the love of Allah, so no love can become an obsession, a life and death attachment. And since this heart reveres Allah, it will not violate Allah’s bounds trying to secure what it loves. Such a heart realizes that if it loses its earthly love, there will always be a compensation for it from Allah, its Greatest Love. Therefore, the religious heart does not obsess in its attachments. Its emotions follow the guidance of Allah.
Extreme love is dangerous in the religious realm too. As we have explained when discussing Ishq, our love of Allah is the only love that has no limit to it (see Appendix I). Love for everyone else can be dangerously inflated. Exaggerating religious love is more destructive than the obsessive love we just discussed. Take, for instance, what ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib said:
Two types of people will perish in relation to me: those who love me excessively and those who hate me excessively.
Al-Albani declared it hasan in al-Sunnah by Ibn Abi ‘Asim (984)
In another narration, he explained where these extreme reactions would lead the two groups:
Some people will love me until they enter Hell because of me, and some people will hate me until they enter Hell because of hating me.
Al-Albani declared it sahih in al-Sunnah by Ibn Abi ‘Asim (983)
Every Muslim should love ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. And this love, like loving the rest of the Companions, is a sign of Iman. But some overlove him until they exaggerate his virtues and accept false beliefs about him. Some believed he was God incarnate, and some ascribed infallibility to him and his children. Some only love him and his progeny but hate the remaining Companions. Consequently, they only accept religious guidance
attributed to him and his children but reject all other hadiths and traditions. This excessive love is a severe deviation from Allah’s revealed religion, and it leads to Hell. On the other extreme, the Khawarij hated ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib I and waged war against him. One of them assassinated him. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم denounced in multiple hadiths both the killer of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and the group the killer belonged to.
If these extreme emotions remind us of anything, they should remind us of how people reacted to Jesus. Some loved him so much that they considered him to be the son of God, while others loathed him so much that they called him a bastard and a charlatan. Both are serious offenses. But those who love Allah follow His guidance, not their desires and emotions. When they love, they love the way Allah wants them to, without exaggerations or falsifications. And if they hate, they do it in ways that do not upset Allah, without transgressions or falsifications. The hearts and bodies of the believers submit first and foremost to Allah. When they love, their earthly love does not exceed their divine love. They remember that their greatest love and attachment is to Allah.
Love changes
One of the shortsighted assumptions of the soulmate idea is that love and whom you love do not change. Love in that fairytale is imagined as a static and unchangeable reality: once you fall in love, you love forever. But we and whom we love change. Therefore, the relationship itself changes, evolves, and matures. And sometimes, love is not strong enough to survive these changes.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم pointed to the instability of emotions to highlight the need for moderation. If you overlove, you could end up regretting it. And it is so if your hate is extreme. In both cases, you may say and do what you come to regret later. What would you do if you base your worth and happiness on someone’s love, and they leave you? Would that not devastate you? How about confiding in someone whom you thought loved you, but they then turn against you and reveal all your secrets? Or suppose when you hated someone, you left no insult in your arsenal unused to let them know how you felt. Later, you found out it was based on a misunderstanding. Or maybe life brings you closer together, and you realize that you now need them. How
could you both be friends after what was said and done? If we hate, we must assume that this feeling—and the reasons behind it—may not last. And if we love, we must not let this love be the center of our existence, the be-all and end-all of our happiness.
The following story is illustrative of the unpredictability of love. Ibn ‘Abbas said:
The husband of Barirah was a slave called Mughith. It is as if I can see him now walking behind her crying, with his tears running down his beard. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said to Al-‘Abbas, «O ‘Abbas, are you not amazed by the love of Mughith for Barirah and the hatred of Barirah for Mughith?» The Prophet of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said to her, «Why don’t you go back to him?» She said, “O Messenger of Allah, are you commanding me to do so?” He said, «I am only interceding.» She said, “I have no need for him.”
Reported by al-Bukhari (5283)
She and her husband were slaves. She was freed before he was, and so had the option of staying with him or leaving him. She chose the latter. Notice that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم did not compel her to go back to her husband. He صلى الله عليه وسلم understood that each human has their own capacity, and he cannot force her to love him or to stay with him. He could only advise. And he did not blame her husband for loving her or crying over her. He understood that this is not something he could control. He صلى الله عليه وسلم could only observe and point to the disparity of emotions. If they turn to Allah, He will compensate both of them.
The one whom you love may stop loving you. We have no control over this. But we should not stop loving people because they may abandon us later. Such suspicion is unhealthy and is not the right way to live. What we can do, however, is be balanced
in our attachments and detachments. And if we are hurt or confused, we turn to Allah for comfort and support.
I was married to a woman and I loved her, but Umar hated her. He asked me to divorce her, but I refused. So, ‘Umar went to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and mentioned it to him, and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said to me, «Divorce her.»
Reported by Abu Dawud (5138) and al-Tirmidhi (1189) and al-Albani declared it sahih (Sahih Abi Dawud, 5138)
‘Umar I did not ask his son to divorce his wife because of a personal grievance. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم interfered and sided with ‘Umar I precisely because the issue was not personal but religious. Had Ibn ‘Umar allowed his love for his wife to cloud his judgment and dominate his life, he would not have been able to obey the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم. This is the balance we need between divine and earthly love.
Loving someone may not always be under our control. But the growth of this love, its expressions, and where it leads us are. When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم advised us against intemperate emotions, he knew the damage they could inflict. For love to be and
remain healthy, it always needs Allah.
DR. ALI ALBARGHOUTHI
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