Love of God

and then owing to the exigencies of such a situation, that person experiences spontaneous praise and thanksgiving. It is perhaps this point which is mentioned in this tradition: “When God loves anyone, He puts him on trial.” (Sunan atTirmidhi; Hadith No. 2396) It is as if the realization of the Prophet is at a voluntary level, while the realization of others is a matter of compulsion. Fani Badayuni (d. 1941) was an Urdu poet and a truth seeker. One of his couplets expresses this level of Godrealization: “Meri hawas ko aishe du Alam bhi tha qubul tera karam ke tu ne diya dil dukha hua.” (My desire sought all the luxuries of both the worlds. But it is Your Grace that is kind enough to grant me the grieving heart.) PEOPLE WORTH ENVYING Those who make God the object of their love and the centre of all one’s feelings and emotions, also become God’s beloved. This is the highest level of faith. According to Sunan Al-Baihaqi, there is a tradition recorded in different books of Hadith which says: “‘So, I tell you of those who will neither be prophets nor martyrs but on the day of judgement the prophets and the martyrs will envy them, because of their rank with God. There they will be on the pulpit (raised platform) of the light.’