Why does a strong love sometimes appear first, and then hatred? Love is one side's yearning toward the other.…

Why does a strong love sometimes appear first, and then hatred? Love is one side's yearning toward the other. This is not a yearning driven by greed or lust; rather, the feeling that is free of such desire is the main subject of this text. In the study of how love arises, it is said that love awakens because of perfection: that is, a person's skill, knowledge or character in a particular matter awakens warmth toward him in the heart. Love manifests because of kindness: that is, a person who has received selfless good from someone becomes strongly attached to him. Certain regimes have exploited this with ill intent: first they cruelly oppressed orphan children; then someone rescued them, and the poor orphan comes to love his rescuer intensely. Love comes because of beauty: a person may involuntarily fall in love with those whose eyes and brows are lovely and whose figure is slender. When love goes beyond bounds, it leads to danger. Love born of beauty — of good looks — carries more danger than love that is the fruit of perfection and kindness. What kind of danger is this? The map of the path that love, or the lover, travels is as follows: first, a flickering liking is felt in the heart; if this is the seed of love, all at once it roars up and engulfs the whole heart like a flame. Just as fire leaps up when gasoline is poured and a match is struck over it, so the fire of love rises inside the heart. In the matter of love, a person passes through two stages. In the first stage he does not know the nature and essence of love; he has neither knowledge nor experience of it. This applies mostly to the young. That is why, at the time of its first assault, love drives the lover mad. He longs for the beloved without end; walking or standing, he thinks of her and feels he is about to lose his mind. He wants to declare his love, but he has no courage. When he thinks of daring, he fears he will lose the beloved altogether. In this way the lover goes on burning and smoldering. But this love slowly calms down. If he passes through this stage safe and sound, the lover escapes without harm. But those who are delivered without suffering harm from either the first assault of love or its repeated assaults are very few.

The second stage of love: once the lover has an idea of how love comes and goes, he acquires the ability to sense its assault in advance. If a yearning toward someone arises within him again, he knows what will befall him and prepares himself as if preparing to walk into a flood or a fire; he clearly understands what calamities love will bring upon his head. Very intelligent people may escape this affliction, and even then there is no way left but to flee from that beloved. If the lover flees at the time of the first spark, he has won. If he cannot flee, at the second meeting the flame flares up; at the next, if the beloved shows him some favor, that is the end — now he is the slave of the beloved. The next time, if the beloved pays him no attention and is a little occupied with others, then watch the spectacle: the whole world sinks into darkness for the lover; it is as if the Day of Judgment has come. This is true love, and it has no cure. In this interval curious things happen. If the love is true, then after all this burning and smoldering everything goes along at an even pace; but if it is an unripe love, the lover may come to hate the beloved. Its unripeness lies in the ego having mixed into it, the desires of the ego having blended with love. This mixture is a very dangerous poison. The ego has physical and spiritual lusts. Its physical lust appears in the form of bodily pleasure, while its spiritual lust shows itself as pride and the craving for honor. When the ego mixes into love, one of two calamities arises. As a result, the feeling called love turns into hatred. The lover becomes a serious enemy of the beloved and sets about doing her harm. That is why a gnostic and wise person, when he senses the danger of love, does not give it leave. For its outcome is unknown. It is better to refrain from proclaiming to the world, “I am in love.” If, after love, hatred does appear, there is hope of deliverance for the one who repents, entrusts everything to Allah, and occupies himself more with worship. That was the problem of the one who loves. If the beloved side happens to be wise, he or she guards against being loved. Even if loved, he or she treats the poor lover with wisdom and tact so that the outcome of this love will not be hatred. But for this one must be very magnanimous; otherwise, why burn one's soul for someone else?! But there is also a true love, a truly pure love, in which the two sides understand each other and become dust before each other; here there is neither the lust nor the vanity of the ego! On the contrary, this is a love that turns the world into paradise, makes one forget the torments of hell in the Hereafter, gives the heart boundless peace, and turns paradise itself into an eternal place beyond imagining. One can only long for it.

Akrom MALIK