The Love of God in the Qur'an
The Love of God in the Qur'an and the Bible
Chapters
« The Great and First Commandment
Christianity and Islam have different views of God. Both the Bible and the Qur'an claim to be the Word of God but the theology of God is often strikingly different in these two books. What we are particularly concerned about here, however, is to discover in which book we find the best revelation of God's love towards men. Let us begin by studying briefly the teaching of the Qur'an about the love of God.
Firstly, there is in the Qur'an an exhortation to men to love God. Perhaps the best verse in the Qur'an which contains this injunction is this one:
"Say, If ye love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins". Quran 3.31
Significantly, however, one does not find in this verse (nor in any other in the Qur'an) the command to love God with "all your heart, soul and mind". The reason is fairly clear from the verse itself. The hearer is exhorted to love God so that he may thereby obtain God's love and forgiveness. The basic object, therefore, of this love is the acquittal and approval of God for the believer. Accordingly the motivation for such love must be the welfare and comfort of the believer. It is not suggested in the Qur'an that such love must be exercised in a disinterested and selfless manner with the glory of God foremost in the believer's mind. On the contrary the object of such love is really the believer himself. He seeks by this love fundamentally to turn aside God's wrath and to gain his approval in its place. Now this is not the fruit of genuine love. Such love, as we have seen, must be the exercise of the purest affections of the heart towards God - it cannot be accompanied by an ancillary motive such as the principal objective of obtaining God's forgiveness.
For this reason it is therefore quite significant that the Qur'an does not exhort the believer to love God with all his heart. Such love from the heart is essentially selfless in nature. That which seeks its own security does not proceed from the heart. It is not the expression of the deepest affections of the very kernel of a man's being. Love in the latter sense seeks principally the glory of its object - but that which strives for the approval of God and considers primarily its own prospects of forgiveness is fundamentally self-motivated. It cannot be described as genuine love and certainly he who loves God chiefly to obtain his forgiveness is not fulfilling the royal commandment - indeed what Jesus called the "great and first commandment" to love God with all his heart, soul and mind. As we saw earlier, the fear of God's wrath disqualifies the potential for genuine love in the heart.
The Qur'an does not give the believer any total assurance of the forgiveness of all his sins this side of the grave. Accordingly it is hardly surprising that it sets the prospect of forgiveness at the end of life as the reward of service to God. Even then there is no complete assurance that the believer will be forgiven and the believer can only die in the hope of God's mercy (Quran 17.57). It must again be stressed, however, that such service is done purely out of love towards oneself with the welfare of the self at heart. Only when the believer begins with the total knowledge of God's forgiveness can he serve God freely out of genuine love. As long as he fears God's wrath he cannot possibly exercise real love towards God with the glory of God as the principal concern of his heart.
Accordingly it must be concluded that the teaching of the Qur'an does not meet the needs of genuine love. It leaves presently undecided the fact of forgiveness and its exhortations to men to love God are given with one chief objective - the realisation of his acquittal and approval. In such circumstances a man cannot honestly love God with all his heart. He cannot express such love without some prospect of acquittal and acceptance with God foremost in his soul and mind.
Secondly, we find that the Qur'an says very little about the expression of God's love for mankind. Almost invariably the Qur'an speaks of this love as an expression of approval of those who do good. This verse gives a typical example of this fact (and has the same theme as the others on this subject):
"Spend your wealth for the cause of Allah, and be not cast by your own hands to ruin; and do good. Lo! Allah loveth the beneficent". Quran 2.135
Throughout the Qur'an we read that Allah loves those who do good and does not love those who do evil. This means principally that he approves of those who do good and accordingly disapproves of those who do evil. In every case where the expression occurs in the Qur'an it can easily be translated "approves of" instead of "loves" without any change in the meaning of the expression at all. The knowledge and realisation of this approval will also only be known at the Last Day. This is virtually all that the Qur'an says about the love of God towards mankind.
In our view this is insufficient to awaken in men heartfelt love towards God. There is no present expression of that love from God which can evoke the response of love in men towards him. Indeed the Qur'an often appeals to that which is visible in nature as a proof of God's existence and character. But it is the order in nature itself which reveals the existence and sovereignty of the one true God (Romans 1:20). The Qur'an does not reveal this fact - it is merely appealing to the revelation of it in nature. But apart from this the Qur'an tells us really nothing about the depth of the love of God towards men outside of that which can be discovered in nature. It does not disclose any great act of love in the history of God's dealings with men which should cause the response of heartfelt love towards him in return. To put it in a nutshell, there is no definite expression of love in the heart of God towards men in the Qur'an. No proof of deep affection towards mankind is given at all.
The filial love that a father has for his own children and the revelation of that love is not found in the relationship between God and men in the Qur'an. It has no concept of the Fatherhood of God and whereas God is most commonly called "the Father" in the Bible no such exalted title is found in the Qur'an. Furthermore there is no manifestation of God's love towards mankind which is of the greatest form of love - that of self-denial and self-sacrifice. One does not find in the Qur'an a unilateral display of love in God which expresses itself on behalf of mankind in such a way that God is willing to give of himself to prove and manifest that love. Indeed, even in respect of the teaching that he "loves" those who do good we do not find that this love is an expression of sentiment in the heart of God towards the faithful. In the context of this hadith - which is very consistent with the teaching of the Qur'an about the attitude of Allah towards mankind (Quran 5.18) - we see very clearly the total lack of sentiment in this love:
"Verily Allah created Adam and then rubbed his back with His right hand and took out a progeny from him and said: I created these for Paradise and with the actions of the inmates of Paradise which they will do. Afterwards he rubbed his back with His hand and took out a progeny from him and said: I created these for Hell and with the actions of the inmates of Hell which they will do". (Mishkat al-Masabih, Vol.3, p.107)
We are constrained to conclude that there is no expression of glorious, heartfelt love of God in the Qur'an which would enable men in return to honour his desire and command that we should love him with all our 'hearts, souls and minds. If God in his very own nature does not have heartfelt love towards men, they cannot possibly be expected to express such love towards him in return.
Lastly we find, as a matter of course after what has already been said, that there is, in the teaching of the Qur'an, no capacity for mutual love between God and men such as that between a man and his wife which we discover in the Song of Solomon. It is not possible, according to the Qur'an, for men to actually experience God's love in their very own hearts such as a son's experience of his father's love and a wife of her husband's love. God is indeed called the "Loving One" (al- Wadud) in the Qur'an but only on two occasions (Surahs 11.90, 85.14). This statement, however, does not imply the depth of love in the nature of God such as is found in the Biblical declaration "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Instead one of the great theologians in Islamic history,) al-Ghazzali, is at pains to inform us that the expresssion "the Loving One" means far less than the title would seem to indicate. In his work on the names of God in the Qur'an entitled Al-Maqsad Al-Asna he states that this this title in the Qur'an is a lesser one, for example, than "the Merciful" (ar-Rahim) - an opinion with which we find ourselves compelled to agree, for God is called "the Merciful" over two hundred times in the Qur'an but "the Loving One" only twice. Al-Ghazzali explains this love as consisting solely of objective acts of kindness and expressions of approval. He denies that there is any subjectivity in the love of God, that is, that God feels any love in his own heart towards mankind.
"He remains above the feeling of love". (Al-Maqsad Al-Asna, p.91).
How anyone can be "above" the feeling of love is not at all clear. Love is the greatest of all virtues and anyone who does not feel love in the inmost part of his being must surely be below this excellent grace - indeed far below it. But if it is indeed true that God is devoid of such subjective love towards mankind, then men cannot develop love in their hearts towards him especially to the extent where they love him with all their hearts, souls and minds. Al-Ghazzali confirms this unfortunate fact by saying of God's love:
"Love and mercy are desired in respect of their objects ONLY for the sake of their fruit and benefit and NOT because of empathy or feeling". (Al-Maqsad Al-Asna, p.91).
The emphases are mine. Men therefore cannot have the greatest of privileges - the actual personal knowledge of God's very own love. They can receive things from God as tokens of kindness and approval but God himself cannot be known. There is no possibility of a mutual expression of love between God and men which can develop and grow into a wondrous communion and fellowship between him and the believer.
In these circumstances we can understand why the Qur'an omits the Biblical command to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds. If men cannot now obtain total assurance of forgiveness of their sins, no such genuine love is possible from them. If love is not part of God's very own being but is only discerned in that which he gives to men; if he has not manifested deep love towards mankind in any specific way; and if he likewise withholds from men any personal experience of his very own love, then no one can possibly love him in return from his heart. There is nothing in him that can awaken the response of such love in men.
Moses and Jesus, however, both declared that the fundamental thing that God requires of men is indeed such heartfelt love. Were these men imposing on their followers an impossible command - or did they, on the contrary, have a greater and deeper knowledge of God's real nature than we find in the Qur'an? Because of its limited view of God's love, the Qur'an wisely refrains from commanding of men the greatest possible devotion to God - that of inexhaustible love from the heart. Such love could only be expected of men if God himself is far greater than the Qur'an makes him out to be. He will have to be far more majestic, positively greater, distinctly superior and infinitely more loving if men are to succeed in loving him with all their hearts.
God can only make such a lofty claim on the devotion of men justly if he is prepared right now to give them forgiveness of sins, reveal through some act of love that he is positively worthy of that love, and graciously extend to men the full personal knowledge of this love. If he expects of men the greatest possible expression of devotion - love from the heart - he must be a God worthy of that love. Let us turn to the Bible to see whether the God of Moses and Jesus is indeed such a God.