Categories of love
Categories of love
1- Love of worship: it means humiliating oneself and glorifying Allah. It is represented in feeling His majesty in one's heart, complying with His commands and avoiding His prohibitions. This kind of love is the basic for faith [Iman] and monotheism [tawheed]. It implies numerous virtues. Whoever dedicates this kind of love to Allah is considered the true believer. Whoever dedicates it to otherwise, he will associate others with Allah the Almighty [Shirk]. This is like the disbelievers who love their deities and other things such as trees, stones, humans or kings like the way they love Allah. This kind of love is the basic and root of polytheism.
2- Loving Allah the Almighty: this implies love of what Allah loves of places, times, people, deeds, sayings and the like.
3- Natural love: this kind of love falls into the following:
- Mercy: like the parent's love for his children and being merciful to the patients and weak.
- Respect and veneration: it includes a child-parent love, student-teacher love and the like.
- Human needs: this includes man's love for food, drink, marriage, garments, friends and the like.
This represents the permissible forms of love, if these forms were to help in loving and obeying Allah, it will be categorized among good acts of obedience; otherwise, it will be considered among prohibitions. If it neither helps in obeying nor disobeying Allah, it will remain from among permissible things.
