Love of God

Real love for God will find expression in many ways. Even uttering such words as praise (hamd), thanksgiving (shukr), and remembrance (zikr), as we find in the Quran, is also an expression of our love for God. It would be right to say that Alhum-do-lillah, praise be to God, signifies love for God (Alhub-bu-lillah). Praising God means loving God. Gratitude to God also means loving God. Remembering God also indicates a strong love and affection for God. The Quran has this to say: “Remembrance of God gives one’s heart peace of mind”. (13:28) This means, moreover, that it is only love of God which can give man peace of mind in the real sense. Belief in God begins with the discovery of God. In the Quran this discovery is called Maarifah. Maarifah, or realization of God, in the real sense, becomes a part and parcel of one’s existence. When this happens, all those high and noble manifestations expressed in such words as love, gratitude and remembrance of God come into evidence. SUBMISSION TO GOD Emotional attachment is established not by observation, but at the conceptual level, through thinking. Then both belief in God and love of God is possible while He is unseen. There are certain people who say that loving God means being obedient to God. They explain it by saying that God is an invisible being, and, in the case of an invisible being, an emotional attachment cannot be established. Only