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His words, the Exalted: 'O you who have believed, whoever of you turns back from his religion, Allah will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him (5:53, al-Ma'ida).' And He also said, Mighty and Majestic: 'And among the people are those who take besides Allah equals, loving them as they should love Allah (2:165, al-Baqara).' And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: I heard from Gabriel who said that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said: 'Whoever humiliates a friend of Mine has declared war upon Me. I do not hesitate in anything as I hesitate in taking the soul of My believing servant, who hates death and whom I hate to displease, yet it is unavoidable for him. My servant does not draw near to Me with anything more beloved to Me than the performance of what I have made obligatory upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with voluntary acts until I love him; and when I love him, I become his hearing, his sight, his hand, and his support.' And he also said, peace be upon him: 'Whoever loves to meet Allah, Allah loves to meet him.' And his words, peace be upon him: 'When Allah loves a servant, He says to Gabriel: O Gabriel, I love so-and-so, so love him; so Gabriel loves him. Then Gabriel says to the inhabitants of heaven: Allah loves so-and-so, so love him; so the inhabitants of heaven love him. Then acceptance is placed for him on earth, so the inhabitants of earth love him. And in hatred, the like of that.' Know that the love of God the Exalted for the servant, and the love of the servant for God the Exalted, is a true reality; the Book and the Sunna speak of it and the community is agreed upon it. God, Glorified and Exalted, is of such an attribute that His friends love Him and He loves His friends. According to the lexical meaning they say: love (mahabbat) is derived from 'habba' (with a kasra on the ha), which are the seeds that fall upon the ground in the desert. Love was named 'hubb' because the origin of life is in it, just as the origin of vegetation is in the seed: as that seed scatters in the desert and is hidden in the soil, and rains fall upon it and suns shine upon it and cold and heat pass over it, yet the seed does not change with the changing of the seasons — likewise love in the heart does not change with the changing of the many-colored afflictions; as the poet said: 'O you whose eyelids' sickness is a physician for the sickness of its lover; Affection has become balanced, so that your presence and absence are equal to me.' And they also say: it is derived from a 'hubb' (water-jar) in which there is much water and which is filled full, so that there is no space within it and it holds itself back. Likewise love, when it gathers in the heart of the seeker and fills his heart, no room remains in his heart for anything but talk of the Beloved; just as when God, Glorified and Exalted, honored the Friend (Abraham) with intimate friendship, and he, peace be upon him, became stripped of all but the discourse of the Truth, the world became a veil to him, and in that love he became an enemy of the veils. Then He informed us; His words the Exalted: 'For they are an enemy to me, except the Lord of the Worlds (26:77, al-Shu'ara).' And in this meaning Shibli says, may God's mercy be upon him: 'Love is called mahabba because it erases (tamhu) from the heart all but the Beloved.' And they also say: 'hubb' is the name of that assembled wooden frame upon which the water-jar is placed. Love is called 'hubb' in that sense because the lover bears the toil and hardship, the ease and comfort, the affliction and cruelty of the Beloved, and it is not heavy upon him — because that is his very task, just as the task of those pieces of wood, their composition and their fashioning, was made for that. And in this meaning he says: 'If you wish, be generous, and if you do not wish, then withhold; both of these, coming from you, are attributed to nobility.' And they also say: it is derived from 'hubb,' the plural of habbat al-qalb (the grain of the heart), and the grain of the heart is the locus of the subtle essence and its sustenance, by which its stability is maintained. So love was named 'hubb' by the name of its locus, because its resting place is in the grain of the heart, and the Arabs name a thing by the name of its location. And they also say: it is derived from 'hubab al-ma'' (the bubbling of water) and its boiling during heavy rain — that surging of water at the time of a great downpour. So love was named 'hubb'; 'because it is the boiling of the heart at the longing to meet the Beloved.' The heart of the lover is constantly agitated and restless in the yearning to behold the Beloved; just as bodies long for spirits, the hearts of lovers long to meet their beloveds, and just as the subsistence of the body is by the spirit, the subsistence of the heart is by love, and the subsistence of love is by the seeing and union with the Beloved. In its meaning: 'When people wish for spirit and rest, I wish that I might meet you, O Izz, alone.' And they also say: 'hubb' is a name assigned to the purity of affection, for the Arabs call the pure whiteness of the human eye 'habbat al-insan,' just as they call the pure black core of the heart 'habbat al-qalb.' So this one became the locus of love and that one the locus of seeing, for the reason that the heart and the eye are paired together in love. And in this meaning he says: 'The heart envies my eye the pleasure of looking, and the eye envies my heart the pleasure of thought.'