HADITH THIRTY TWO: SIN KILLS LOVE
The Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم said, «By the One in whose Hand is my soul, no two love each other and then are separated in discord except that it was because of a sin that one of them committed.»
Reported by Ahmad (5357) and al-Albani declared it sahih (Sahih al-Targhib, 2219)
Commentary
Loving and obeying Allah enhances and secures love. Sin, on the other hand, destroys it. Allah’s love is the best way to fix and save our relationships.
Love is connected to Allah
We can think of love as a rope between us and Allah: one ends with Allah and the other us. As long as we hold on to that rope, love will flow to us from Allah. If we let go of it, we let go of love itself.
In search for love, humans speculate about its reasons and obstacles. We want others to love us—which is natural—so we do what we can to please them and win their approval. We also learn from experience what not to do in order to keep their love.
But not all that we learn and do for the sake of love is good. We compromise when we should not, and break our moral codes to keep others happy. The pressure of love is strong, and it can make our moral outlook hazy. It is thus important to understand
how love develops and dies. If love is so fundamental to our lives, learning how to nurture it is fundamental too.
We have seen before that Allah is the source of all love. He made us conscious beings capable of understanding and experiencing love. And this, by the way, is one of the greatest blessings we have received: to go from nothing to sentient beings, and not any sentient beings but ones with high order thinking and complex emotions. If we experience love, it is because of Allah. And He grants this favor to all humans, enabling us to feel the joy of love. And it is based on their experience of earthly love that humans begin to understand the greater love of Allah and how transcendent and different it is. When Allah reveals who He is to us, we are able to turn our capacity for love towards
Him, and with that experience love at an extraterrestrial level. It is with the love of Allah that we reach our fullest potential of love, and it is through loving Allah that we understand what to love and how.
The Hadith of the chapter is an essential piece in the jigsaw of love. Sometimes, we are puzzled by the loss of love. Why does it fizzle out? Why does so-and-so dislike me now after we have been so close? Why do I not feel the same for so-and-so as I did before? Or maybe the presence of love is what is puzzling: how come there is love here but not there? There are, of course, social reasons for the flourishing of love and its decline, and these are important to keep in mind. Some of what the previous hadiths
recommended—like spreading Salam and gift-giving—are examples of these social promoters of love. But there are spiritual—less visible—reasons that are as important, if not more so. And this is where the Hadith comes in. It tells us that love is lost because of sin. And since no one will be able to figure this out on their own until Allah tells them, we are very fortunate to learn this Hadith from the Prophet .
Sin is akin to letting go of the rope that is between us and Allah. This rope is mentioned in the Quran when Allah said:
And all of you hold firmly to the rope of Allah and do not divide.
Ali ‘Imran (Q3:103)
This rope is Allah’s revelation and His obedience. It is what brings you closer to Allah and His love. Now, pause a little and ponder what the ayah is asking us to do and its necessary consequences. It is asking us all to come together, to hold on to the purity and edification of Allah’s Words, and to do our best not to divide. The necessary outcome of this collective activity is love. And this is why Allah continues the ayah by reminding
us of this blessing when He said:
And remember the blessing of Allah upon you when you were enemies, and He brought your hearts together and became—by His grace—brothers, and you were on the edge of the pit of Fire, and He saved you from it.
Ali ‘Imran (Q3:103)
Love is the normal corollary of obeying Allah. The enmity between the Companions disappeared when Islam brought them closer together. Those who come closer to Allah, the source of all love, will receive love. Allah said:
Those who believe and do good deeds, Allah will grant them love.
Maryam (Q19:96)
This is why Islam cannot exist without love. How can it be loveless when the worship of Allah is all based on love? How can it be loveless when those whom Allah loves are spreading love: they love people, and people love them. Love originates with Allah, and the believers transmit it to encompass all. Allah’s love reaches everything.
But when we drop our end of the rope, we let go of the source of love. Loss of love is the consequence and the aftermath of sin. We previously discussed that Shaytan aims to divide people and spread hatred among them, the opposite of what Allah intends.
As long as people hold firmly to Allah’s rope, they will leave no space for Shaytan’s plots and interventions. But when they turn away from Allah, they become defenseless. Left exposed, Shaytan manipulates their thoughts and emotions, ignites the worst in them, and sets them against each other to rip each other apart. Hatred is the goal of Shaytan and the weakness of those who listen to him. Hatred is never the outcome of Allah’s revelation. In fact, the only way to foil the plan of Shaytan—as the first Islamic generation did—is to embrace Islam in full and allow it to cleanse us of selfishness and greed.
The good news in the Hadith is that if two love each other for Allah’s sake, Allah will not separate them as long as they obey Him. Their love and friendship will grow more beautiful as they continue to please Allah. They will get to taste in this life a sample of the joy of Heaven, where its people enjoy each other’s company with pure love for each other.
Before we move on to the next point, there is a question we need to answer: why do non-Muslims have love? If the Hadith is saying that sin separates lovers, why do non-Muslims still enjoy love among themselves? First, Allah did not deny the gift of love to anyone, just like food, drink, and air. Every human, no matter what they believe and how good or bad they are, enjoys Allah’s favors, and experiencing love is one of them. Second, not all non-Muslims know Islam sufficiently to be held liable for their
choices. Many non-Muslims have not received the true and full message of Islam. Because of this, Allah will be more lenient with their sins compared to people who know Allah well yet stubbornly choose to oppose Him. Third, if non-Muslims commit
what Allah hates, their love will also suffer. If they drink and become alcoholics, if they gamble and are addicted to it, if they are unfaithful to their spouses, and if they engage in any criminal activity, they and their families will feel the terrible effects of these sins. In other words, Muslims and non-Muslims alike endanger the love they have when they turn away from Allah. Finally, love has both physical and spiritual foundations. The spiritual foundation is the pleasure of Allah in all of its forms and expressions. The physical foundation includes compatibility between the couple, mutual sympathy, forgiveness, overlooking each other’s mistakes, listening to each other, and so on. If a couple manages to secure the physical foundation, they will maintain and nurture their love. But their love will not be as strong as Muslims who have the spiritual foundation as well. But a word of caution is needed here: the spiritual foundation alone is not enough. A man and a woman could be the two most pious in the city and yet remain incompatible. Unless the pious secure and work on the physical side too, their marriage
and love will suffer.
How do we solve our problems?
The Hadith demystifies the loss of love. There are, of course, physical reasons why love declines and disappears. But the hidden side is elusive and difficult to understand and treat. Why does love go away when it should not, when all of its ingredients are present? And it is harder to understand this loss when it is sudden. But when we realize that sin plays a hidden part in undermining love, we have the medicine we need to protect our love and restore its beauty.
When we start noticing a strain in our relationships, the first thing we should do is take an inventory of our deeds. Have we committed a new sin or neglected a command of Allah? How are we with Allah, in general? Are we close to Him, or have we started to stray away? Is our Iman strong, or is it going through a rough patch? If our relationship with Allah is suffering, then this should be our clue that we should rectify our life immediately. The strain in our relationship may be a sign of a bigger underlying problem that we need to fix. If we take care of the more significant issue, the smaller one will rectify itself, insha-Allah. Musa al-Kadhim said:
If your friend[’s love] changes, then know that it is because of a sin you committed. So, repent to Allah of all sins, and their love will return.
Al-Tanwir Sharh al-Jami‘ al-Saghir (vol. 9, p. 379)
Al-Muzani also said:
If you find your friends disliking you, then repent to Allah because you committed a sin. And if you find an increase in love from them, then it is because of a good deed you did, so thank Allah the Highest.
Fayd al-Qadir (vol. 5, p. 437)
What is so beautiful about these sayings is that they help us relate what happens around us to our Iman and love of Allah. If something is going wrong in our lives, it prompts us to reexamine and improve our relationship with Allah. Of course, we still need to pursue physical solutions to any problem. But we do not solely focus on the physical side and forget the impact of our spiritual condition on our relationships. This is what distinguishes the believers and grants them greater insights into the universe. Things do not only happen because of physical and observable causes. There is a spiritual realm that is also highly impactful. So, when we receive human love, we do not attribute it all to our excellence and piety, but we realize that Allah was behind it. And we need to thank Him for it. Amazingly, all events in our lives—good or bad—are meant to bring us closer to Allah.
Martial issues
Marital discord is a subset of the loss of love discussed above. And what was said about the solution there applies to solving marital problems as well. I highlight it here, however, because this fact may escape the attention of spouses experiencing trouble in their marriage. The first impulse when there is a problem is to blame the other person and exonerate ourselves of all blame. This is the wrong strategy. The first step, and it should always be the first, is to review our relationship with Allah and improve it. And if you fix what is between you and Allah, He will fix what is between you and people or, at least, make fixing it a lot easier for you. The next step is to inspect how you behaved with your spouse, and rectify any mistakes you made. This will restore love and peace to your marriage insha-Allah. But if you want to wreck your marriage, do nothing but blame your spouse. I am not saying that they are not the ones at fault. What I am suggesting is that blaming them takes you nowhere, and they will get defensive and attack you back. Then what? But if you want to save your marriage and your love—and not only save it but enhance it—follow the Prophetic solution. Love is about letting go of our egos and desiring the best for others, especially those closest to us. Love is about surrendering to Allah and loving what He loves. If I love Allah’s forgiveness, I should love forgiving others. If I notice that people have flaws, it should not escape me that I am a flawed human and yet I still receive Allah’s blessings and love each day. If Allah is generous with me, why am I so stingy with others? Give out some of what Allah gave you. Love for them what you love for yourself. Love as Allah loved you.
DR. ALI ALBARGHOUTHI
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