“God is Love” – three words which open up an unending realm for the thinker who desires to probe the depths of the secret of Life.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Every kind of power lies in this one thing which we call by the simple name: Love. Charity, Generosity, Kindness, Affection, Endurance, Tolerance, and Patience — all these words are different aspects of one; they are different names of only one thing: Love. Whether it is said, ‘God is Love,’ or whatever name is given to it, all the names are the names of God; and yet every form of Love, every name for Love, has its own peculiar scope, has a peculiarity of its own. Love as kindness is one thing, Love as tolerance is another, Love as generosity is another, Love as patience another; and yet from beginning to end it is just Love. [ In fact, as Imam Bilal Hyde (one of the 4 authors of ‘Physicians of the Heart’) teaches, from the deepest point of view, since it was Love that brought the created Universe into manifestation out of the Unseen Unmanifested Source, every quality and aspect, all of the Divine Names and Qualities can be understood as different permutations and variations of Love … even the ones that on the surface might seem to have nothing to do with Love — Muiz ]
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Love, whether it is human or Divine is considered to be sacred, in the view of the mystics, philosophers, and thinkers. That it is possible to regard it thus is shown by the fact that in its root it is beyond both the human and the Divine. As it is written in the Bible, ‘God is Love’, three words which open up an unending realm for the thinker who desires to probe the depth of the secret of love. In ordinary life, we make this word mean affection for our surroundings, for our relatives or our beloved, but when we think deeply about it, we see that from start to finish it represents the Power underlying the power of all activities and all intelligences.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Love, Human and Divine )
Mystics of all ages have not been known for their miraculous powers or for the doctrines they have taught, but for the devotion they have shown throughout their lives. The Sufis in the East say to themselves, Ishq Allah Ma’bud Allah, which means ‘God is Love, God is the Beloved’, in other words it is God who is Love, Lover, and Beloved. When we hear the stories of the miraculous powers of mystics, of their great insight into the hidden laws of nature, of the qualities which they manifested through their beautiful personalities, we realize that these have all come from one and the same source, whether one calls it devotion or whether one calls it Love.
When we look at this subject from a mystic’s point of view, we see that Love has two aspects. Love in itself, and the shadow of love fallen on the earth. The former is heavenly the latter is earthly. The former develops self-abnegation in a person; the latter makes one more selfish than one was before. Virtues such as Tolerance, Mercy, Forgiveness and Compassion rise of themselves in the heart which is awakened to Love.
How beautiful are the words of the Prophet: ‘The shrine of God is the heart of humanity.’ How true that is! Is God to be found in a mosque, or temple, or church, or in any place where people sing hymns and offer their prayers? Can God be found where there is no love? God is not to be found in the houses that people have built for worship. These are only schools for children, and their playgrounds. Children like playing with toys, and yet they are preparing themselves for something else. When we have come to know the real beauty of God, we will find that it dwells only in one place: in the heart of humanity. God is Love, and God is found in the heart of everyone.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Love, Harmony, and Beauty )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
In this we have three ideas, two of which the mind can partially grasp, the other of which — although the mind names it — it grasps not at all. This is “God,” who in the form called by the Sufis Zat, is beyond all predication, but in the aspects of Life and Love, there is predication about God.
[ The two ideas which the mind can partially grasp are Life and Love, which Murshid SAM says predicate the existence of ‘God’ (predication meaning: ‘to state or affirm something as an attribute or quality of something else’ … Life and Love thus predicate their Source which we refer to as ‘God’). The other aspect or ‘form’ of ‘God’ which the Sufis refer to as ‘Zat’ ذَات, cannot be grasped by the mind (below the mind-mesh) at all. We simply give it a name which points to something we cannot understand — Zat, Beingness, Essence, Unknowable, Unmanifest, and so forth. In Sufi metaphysics Zat is the Unknowable Source of the Sifat (the various manifested, experienceable Divine Qualities, the Divine Names) and the totality of the Created Universe out of which they all arise and to which they all return.
In terms of spelling and pronunciation Zat may also be seen spelled as ‘Dhat’. This difference in pronunciation and the corresponding transliteration using Latin/Roman Alphabet letters depends on which language the transliteration comes from. Arabic speakers pronounce this beginning letter like the ‘th’ in the English words ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘there’, not like ‘thin’ or ‘thick’. Farsi (Persian) and Urdu speakers (Hz Inayat Khan spoke Urdu) pronounce this same letter as a ‘z’. This alternative pronunciation/transliteration/spelling can also be seen in the word Zikr/Dhikr. — Muiz ]
Thus when one says, “is,” that means that God and the Life are identical. Allah is essence, Allah is Eternal Being, and thus “God is.” God is and no one else is; God is and nothing else is. Only God is and there is naught else. But what is God? What is the nature of Life? It is Love. If it were not Love, nothing would hold on to anything else — neither cell to cell in the physical, nor thought to thought in the mental, nor heart to heart in the spiritual. Without Love nothing would adhere to anything else, there would be nothing to know. All would be chaos. And upon this much meditation is needed.