In Praise of Earthly Love

We have all heard that famous saying of the Prophet: Three things have been made beautiful in my eyes and their love has been placed in my heart: women, perfume, and prayer. Our literature, too, is replete with amorous thoughts and poems, and if some of them are directed toward beauty in an absolute sense, some are certainly directed toward and specific to women: enchanting women to whom poets have devoted a great part of their expression in describing their beauty and their own infatuation with it. Of course, the things poets have said about love and beauty have sometimes been expressed so ambiguously that in many places they can be taken as directed toward another beloved. That other beloved could be a man, could be neither woman nor man, but a sacred beloved and a divine, spiritual sweetheart. For this very reason, those who wished to cleanse the skirts of these mystics—as they imagined—from filth and defilement would interpret their words and extract from them a kind of celestial affection and love. In the view of such people, the mystics' attention to earthly loves was considered a kind of deficiency for them, and therefore another meaning had to be found for it. In our culture, the issue of woman has always possessed such an abnormal, distressing, and hypocrisy-laden complexity. On the one hand, speaking of love for women was forbidden, and on the other hand, in the heart and in secret, it consumed the most time and energy from our men. Society had the greatest mental preoccupation with this issue, yet made the tongue appear as pure as possible from this matter. In our present society, too, this issue is clearly visible. I imagine there are few societies in the world where the issue of woman is as important and sensitive as it is for our society, and at the same time, where so much ostensible concealment is practiced about it and it is pretended as if the issue has been resolved. These very discriminations and meaningless segregations that some have created and continue to create between men and women speak of the ultimate preoccupation of their minds with this issue and show that the issue has not yet been resolved. We see the same thing in our own literature; that is, one can easily understand what a certain mystic or poet was thinking about and speaking of, but they expressed the matter so ambiguously that it has allowed interpreters to extract whatever they wish from it. When our poets composed poetry in Arabic, because pronouns there are masculine and feminine, their intent became clearer. But when they spoke in Persian, since we do not have masculine and feminine pronouns in Persian, the scope for interpretation became wider. For example, in Hafez's verses you will not find an instance that explicitly refers to a woman or a girl (the daughter of the vine is another matter), but as soon as we come to his Arabic verses, feminine pronouns become apparent: 'Salīmī, since you have settled in Iraq / I encounter in love for her what I encounter'... Or in Sa'di's Arabic poetry: 'O you who burn me with the fire of your cheek / from whose ember the lamp is lit' and the like. Of course, in Hafez's Divan and in the poems of others, we find verses that are clearly non-feminine:

I take pride in the narrow-eyedness of that soldierly Turk / who attacked me, a dervish, with just a single robe

I am a disciple of the Magian elder, blame me not, O Sheikh / for you made a promise, and he fulfilled it

A soldierly Turk cannot be of any gender other than boys and men. In Sa'di's verses, these boyish allusions are more apparent.

The radiant suns of our literature had such a language and such a mind. That is, the capital of their thought and the source of their inspiration was something we refer to as love and affection, and this love and affection was not everywhere lavished upon sacred and celestial beings, but was directed toward earthly and worldly sweethearts and beloveds. With all this, and despite the importance this category has had in our literature and mysticism, when it comes to our life relations and ethics, this same extraordinarily dear and far-reaching love suddenly becomes forbidden, proscribed, immoral, and unpraiseworthy. Such a strange duality has existed among us and has become even more intense in our time.

If we move beyond literature and take a look at the Quran, we can see a faint and subtle trace of this subject there as well. God explicitly says: “زُيِّنَ لِلنَّاسِ حُبُّ الشَّهَوَاتِ مِنَ النِّسَاء وَالْبَنِينَ وَالْقَنَاطِيرِ الْمُقَنطَرَةِ مِنَ الذَّهَبِ وَالْفِضَّةِ وَالْخَيْلِ الْمُسَوَّمَةِ وَالأَنْعَامِ وَالْحَرْثِ...” (Āl ʿImrān: 14), meaning that God has cast the love of certain things into people’s hearts: such as women, children, heaps of gold and silver, branded horses, cattle, and tillage... That is to say, love of women is a God-given matter. Also, in the Quran there are two love stories; in one, love and desire are very vivid and prominent, and in the other, it is expressed in a more subdued form. The first story is that of Joseph and Zuleikha, the tale of Zuleikha’s infatuation with Joseph and Joseph’s chastity. The other is the story of Moses and the daughter of Shuʿayb. In this story, too, we encounter a girl’s infatuation with a young man—a girl who approves of Moses and advises her father, Shuʿayb, to hire him, and ultimately (it seems) becomes his wife.

Now, the important point that must be addressed is whether something called love between a man and a woman is religiously and morally affirmable and commendable or not? Is it blameworthy or praiseworthy? What are its harms? And what desirable or undesirable results and effects does it have? And in a religious society, what form should this matter take? We have, of course, as our history shows, been prone to excess and deficiency in this matter. We have had ascetics and moralists who severely disparaged and reproached being in love. The very same people about whom Hafez has explicitly said:

They say, speak not of the secret of love, nor listen; / It is a difficult tale that they recount.

These people say, do not even mention the name of love and do not speak of it, for it is a sin. In contrast, there was a group who, because of the benefits and good effects they saw in the matter of love, could not easily let go of it or turn away. They said that one cannot be deprived of such a blessed bounty on the pretext of sin and asceticism. It seems Hafez’s counsel was directed at these pretext-makers:

“The repentant ascetic will be slain by the taste of wine; / O wise one, do not do that which brings repentance.”

Our mystics put forward a very important theory, which is: al-majāz qanṭarat al-ḥaqīqa, in other words:

“Whether love be from this side or from that, / Ultimately it guides us to that side.”

This theory has been a very significant statement in the history of our culture. This saying, like a small jug containing an ocean, has encapsulated a sea within itself and was, in fact, the theorization of an extraordinarily successful human experience.

Mulla Sadra, in his book “Al-Asfar al-Arbaʿa,” dedicates a chapter to love and strives to provide a philosophical foundation for it. According to Mulla Sadra, since love is an existing, prevalent, and abundant phenomenon in the universe, it must certainly have a purpose. Love is not an accidental, rare, futile, or artificial matter. On the contrary, it is a firm, widespread, and common matter; therefore, it is something God-made, possessing purposes and blessings, and for this reason, its sanctity must be preserved, its worth and status recognized, and above all, it must not be defiled with impurities. He argues on the basis of the principle “al-ittifāqī lā yakūn dāʾiman wa lā akthariyyan” (the accidental is neither permanent nor prevalent).

But our great mystics, before Mulla Sadra presented his philosophical analysis on love, had already summarized their entire experience in this saying that the metaphorical (majāz) is the bridge (qanṭara) to the Truth (ḥaqīqa). But why did they claim that the metaphorical is a bridge by crossing which one can reach the Truth? Firstly, because they had seen that this is truly the case, meaning this metaphorical realm has indeed brought people to the Truth. Secondly, they had seen that some people wanted to slaughter this metaphorical realm at the feet of the Truth; therefore, to preserve the sanctity of this metaphorical realm, they connected it to the Truth. They said that love is also a station among the stations of the Truth. If that Truth is at the fiftieth step, this metaphorical realm is the first step, and it will ultimately deliver us there. It is the ladder to that rooftop, and the ladder must not be disrespected, and this is no small point.

It is better to offer an explanation here and specify what is meant by love. When we speak of love, we must distinguish it from certain other forms of liking and affection; this love is not of the same kind as the common human interest in categories such as wealth, property, occupation, knowledge, work, and so on. The word love should not be used in those contexts at all. A person who loves wealth should not be called a lover of wealth. A person who loves knowledge should not be called a lover of knowledge. The word love was simply not coined for these situations. Such usage is definitely erroneous and must be corrected. Our mystics, when they spoke of love—this very earthly and metaphorical love—never had this meaning in mind. By love, they did not mean an intense interest in a category. They recounted effects and ordinances for love such that if those effects appeared, we would there encounter true love and affection. When they spoke of love, their point was that love brings a person satiety, not hunger. It grants them tranquility, not anxiety. It makes them good-tempered, not ill-tempered.

These great figures had themselves experienced love and never interpreted ordinary interests or covetousness with the sacred word love. Hafez, who said:

"The wool-clad, ill-tempered man has caught no scent of love / Tell him a hint of its intoxication, so he may abandon sobriety"

wished to cure ill temper with love and transform it into good nature. When Hafez says: "I see his brain is dry, perhaps he does not take the cup," this is what he means. Rumi, who calls love the physician and the teacher (two attributes belonging to prophets), says something extraordinarily important, and if love is a physician, when someone's ailments are not cured but rather increase, that person cannot be called a lover. Someone who loves money and whose disease of greed is not only unsoothed but has become a hundred times sicker, more avaricious, and more ill-tempered—how can this person be considered a lover? Love must bring good temper, not ill temper. It must bring generosity, not miserliness. It must make a person calmer, not more anxious. That which the great ones called love, whether divine love or earthly love, possessed such characteristics. In celestial love as well, if someone claims to be a lover and speaks of love for God but is not good-tempered, calm, and self-sacrificing, they have made an extravagant claim. Those attacks Hafez launched against the ascetics of his time were for this very reason. Addressing the ascetics, he said:

"The frown of asceticism does not suit the face of intoxication / I am the servant of the high-mindedness of the good-natured dregs-drinkers"

He was saying, you sullen people, on what grounds do you introduce yourselves as God-worshippers and knowers of God? If you have love for God, ill temper, irritability, misbehavior, and so on will depart. Avicenna uses the term "behjat" (joy) in this regard. In his book Al-Isharat, he has a chapter titled "On Joy and Felicity." There, he calls the expansive state of the mystic and lover's mind "behjat" and distinguishes it from superficial pleasures and intoxications. A money-worshipper may also reach a state of exhilaration from acquiring wealth, but this is not felicitous joy. Avicenna said: "al-'arif hashsh bashsh basam," meaning the mystic person is cheerful and smiling, and the dust of ill temper does not settle upon their face. This is because they know the secret of divine decree and are in harmony with the totality of the universe.

This attribute also holds true for the lover. "al-'ashiq hashsh bashsh basam." Rumi, in a very beautiful ghazal, addresses his beloved and says:

Drunk and laughing, you come from the tavern of God / At the good and bad of the world, like a spark, you laugh

From eternity, God cut your navel upon laughter / But today, O idol, in a different way you laugh

“A different kind of laughter,” “cutting the human navel upon laughter,” and “laughing like a spark at the good and evil of the world” are Rumi’s expressions concerning the lover. Fire laughs at everything, draws everything into its maw and burns it, yet at the same time spreads its skirt and shuns nothing. Laughing spark-like at the good and evil of the world is the station of lovers. One whose garment, in Rumi’s phrase, has been rent by love is cleansed of greed and every flaw. Can a greedy person become a lover? Can he be called a lover?

 Whosoever’s garment is rent by love / Is cleansed of greed and every flaw entire

. This love can be any love; it makes no difference. Here there is no distinction between earthly and heavenly:

The Beloved is alive, the lover a dead thing / All is the Beloved, the lover is a veil

 Be glad, O love, our sweet madness / O physician of all our ailments

 O remedy for our pride and our honor / O you who are our Plato and our Galen

The earthly body soared to the heavens through love / The mountain began to dance and became nimble

 Kindle a fire of love in your soul / Burn up thought and expression entirely

 If a physician is touched by such madness / Tell him to wash his medical book in blood

For this madness is not common / Medicine is not guided by these decrees.

The reason the great ones considered love to be wall-to-wall with madness and frenzy was that the lover becomes unconventional. That is, an extraordinary transformation occurs in their personality, so that the good and evil of the world changes in their eyes. Their needs are transformed. Hence selfishness, greed, covetousness, and the like are completely cleansed away, and good nature, tranquility, open-handedness, generosity, and contentment take their place. Those who are quick to issue fatwas and divide loving and affection into halal and haram do not have a proper understanding of the blessings of love. How can such a blessed, humanizing matter be forbidden? But those who had seen the truth were more cautious and did not issue prohibitive fatwas easily or recklessly. For this very reason, they cautiously said:

“Whether love is from this side or from that side / In the end it guides us to that other side”

And for this reason, they met lovers with compassion and kindness. Fundamentally, how could great figures like Hafez and Rumi ignore their own experiences of love? When they saw that love had granted them such transformation and showered them with so many blessings, they felt obligated to honor its due, to seat others at the same table, and to say:

“Become a lover, or else one day the world’s work will end / You have not read love’s purpose from the workshop of existence”

They saw that love had opened their tongues and love had opened their eyes and ears. If they composed ghazals, if they grasped any truth, and if they bestowed any freshness upon this world, it was all from love:

“The nightingale learned speech from the grace of the rose, otherwise / All this song and ghazal would not be stored in its beak”

On the other side was Ghazali, who was among those of his time ignorant of love. In the entire Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din, he has no more than a word or two about love, and there, unfortunately, by the concept of love he meant sexual desire, and then added that a person should not make themselves a captive of love for a woman (your beloved’s tresses, not another’s tresses); one should not detain oneself with these love games. He explicitly said, “It is a heart’s preoccupation with no real concern.” Whereas figures like Rumi and Hafez explicitly tell us that everything is a game except the game of love:

The world is love, and all else is hypocrisy and trickery / All is a game except the game of love

 His work is such that he became a disciple of the Truth / For its sake he severed himself from every other task

Others, like children, for these few days / Play upon the dust until nightfall

They had rightly understood that twenty or thirty years of ascetic discipline never bring about as much transformation of character in anyone as love does. I have noted this once before, that our Sufism has passed through two periods. The first period was the period of asceticism, and the second, the period of love. In the period of asceticism, austerity and fear dominated the thought of the Sufis and mystics. Abstinence from luxuries, turning away from worldly pleasures, and ceaseless trembling before the might of God were the hallmarks of this period. The tyranny of God had placed such spiritual pressure upon the mystics that they saw themselves as defenseless and without refuge in this world. So defenseless that they could not even take refuge in God Himself; for they thought that He too might not keep His promises. He too might one day let His wrath stir without reckoning or cause, and dispatch the obedient to hell, and one day lead the sinners to paradise. For this reason, they trembled helplessly over themselves and found no cure or remedy for this fear. Rumi later attacked this ascetic and cowardly Sufism, saying:

The ascetic races on foot with fear / Lovers fly swifter than lightning and air

That is, he likened the fear-stricken ascetic to a man on foot, and the lover to a mounted man:

There is not a hair's breadth of fear in the creed of Love / All are sacrificed in the presence of Love

He said that in the religion of love, fear has no standing whatsoever:

Love is an attribute of God, but fear / Is the attribute of a servant afflicted by lust and belly

He said that loving is essentially a divine act, while asceticism is a human act. God loves, but He does not practice asceticism. God is a lover, but He is not fearful. Therefore, the servant who is a lover is more godly than the servant who is fearful and ascetic:

Love is an attribute of God, but fear / Is the attribute of a servant afflicted by lust and belly

Love is among the attributes of the Self-Sufficient God / Being in love with other than Him is metaphorical

It is obvious that those who considered love to be among the divine attributes could not easily reject such an immensely important blessing. Thus it was that love remained in our literature and mysticism, and through this path left its softening influence upon our relatively harsh and masculine society, history, and culture.

Another point I must mention is that love is fundamentally not a matter of choice. The preliminaries of love can, of course, be voluntary, but love itself is not. Not only is it not voluntary, but when it arrives, it deprives a person of choice. In other words, love neither comes by a person's permission or choice, nor, when it does come, does it leave a person with free will. The most important gift a lover brings to the threshold of the beloved is his free will, and as we know, voluntary matters are subject to obligation, lawful and unlawful, obligatory and recommended, not involuntary matters. If we ask someone whether dreaming is lawful or unlawful, they will laugh at us, for a person does not dream by choice. Sa'di said:

No one gives their heart to your love by choice / You have set a snare and you make them captive

No one falls in love by choice, and the category of love is not a voluntary one for a person to be able to speak of the jurisprudential rulings of lawful and unlawful there. This is a very fundamental point: firstly, falling in love is the attention of the beloved upon the lover, which casts restlessness into their heart; secondly, it is entirely outside the lover's choice and the realm of obligation, rulings, and the lawful and unlawful.

Now, with these attributes we have defined for love and all the blessings and bounties that follow in its wake, is it right that such a blessed matter should be suppressed? And that lovers should be humiliated or made to feel ashamed of their love? As Hafez says:

Despite the pretenders who forbid love / The beauty of your face is our sound proof

Indeed:

Love-play is no game, O heart, stake your life / For the ball of love cannot be struck with the polo mallet of lust.

Love is a precious category. It must neither fall into the hands of those ignorant of love to be condemned and vilified, nor into the hands of the defiled to be polluted. One must be zealous over love. Love is a healer, and through it, many illnesses, selfishnesses, anxieties, and greeds are remedied. Love is not a sickness; rather, it dispels sickness. Love in its true sense, whether for a human being, for God, whether earthly or heavenly, must be promoted, taught, and admired. In literature, in film and art, it must be spoken of and spoken of, shown and shown, for it is never tedious. Zeal is not only for one's beloved's brow; there is also zeal for human love. Love among humans is, of course, intermingled with all their affairs, including sexuality. But sexuality is the pretext for loving. Loving itself is superior to that; 'loving' also refines sexuality, and it is this grace that makes all loves divine. As that contemporary poet says:

May the stranger's hand never reach that lover and that stature / Tell the morning breeze to lift the veil from the rose's face

People play the backgammon of affection with lust / But love is neither feminine nor masculine

Not Aristotle, who has reason but lacks wings / Rather a swallow, which flies with the breadth of reason

Make my sweet palate sweeter through sin / The sin of your love has a different sweetness...

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PDF file of the article In Praise of Earthly Love

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In Praise of Earthly Love

Author: Abdolkarim Soroush

Source: Madreseh Quarterly

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