Al-Ghazali Quotes on Love
Al-Ghazali (1058–1111) — the Persian Sunni jurist, theologian, and Sufi master whose Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum al-Din) remains the most read work of Islamic religious literature outside the Quran and Hadith — gave classical Sufi philosophy its most influential treatment of love (mahabba). Book 36 of the Ihya, on love, longing, intimacy, and contentment, develops love as the supreme spiritual station: the heart’s response to the recognition that God alone is the proper object of every love whose lesser instances are merely traces of the divine beauty. The framework, integrating the Ash‘ari theology and Sufi practice of the broader work, shaped subsequent Sufi reflection through Ibn Arabi and Rumi and remains the principal classical Sunni statement on the love of God.
Quotes
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Attributed to Al-Ghazali:
“Treat the people in such a way that if you die they should weep over you, and if you are alive they should crave for your company.”
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“For those endowed with insight there is in reality no object of love but God, nor does anyone but He deserve love”
Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment . Islamic Texts Society. 2011. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-903682-27-2 . Translated with an introduction and notes by Eric Ormsby. -
“if man’s love for himself be necessary, then his love for Him through whom, first his coming-to-be, and second, his continuance in his essential being with all his inward and outward traits, his substance and his accidents, occur must also be necessary. Whoever is so besotted by his fleshy appetites as to lack this love neglects his Lord and Creator. He possesses no authentic knowledge of Him; his gaze is limited to his cravings and to things of sense.”
Al-Ghazali on Love, Longing, Intimacy & Contentment. Translated with an introduction and notes by Eric Ormsby. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society (2011), p. 25. -
“if man’s love for himself be necessary, then his love for Him through whom, first his coming-to-be, and second, his continuance in his essential being with all his inward and outward traits, his substance and his accidents, occur must also be necessary. Whoever is so besotted by his fleshy appetites as to lack this love neglects his Lord and Creator. He possesses no authentic knowledge of Him; his”
Al-Ghazali on Love, Longing, Intimacy & Contentment. Translated with an introduction and notes by Eric Ormsby. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society (2011), p. 25.