It’s startling that love as a feeling can cause someone to behave both irrationally and contrary to their interests.
After all love can cause us to sacrifice all in it’s service. And that even when it’s promise is fleeting. (Remember Rogogin).
But when you love a principle, and indeed the greatest of principles is the Most Gracious, the Ever Living, even then that love can cause you to behave irrationally.
Like the man who stumbled over the words and God smiled. He stumbled in his eagerness and said “God is my servant and I am his Master” instead of the appropriate, and true, reversal.
The Most Gracious does not take you to task for your eagerness, that causes you to stumble, rather He delights in it.
Like for example the man who hates a proponent of the truth because in his eyes they do not live up to the standards set by the Truth.
Here he loves the truth of the religion so much, that when someone fails, in his eyes, in regards to the principles of the religion, then he hates them with a vehemence.
So here contradictorily vehemence is born from love.
And when we deliberate further then we would realise that the worst of crimes- envy- is also born from love.
But a misplaced love of things, or authority, or standing.
But a love of a principle.
The love of the idea of Islam, and the nobility that it entails?
That person is a Muslim and a believer, even though they may not even know it.
Then when they see someone who espouses the religion, but doesn’t live up to their high standards, then that can be their tipping point into hypocrisy and disbelief.
As mentioned in S Taubah, they believe and then they disbelieve, they believe and then they disbelieve, they believe and then they disbelieve and then God confirms them in their hypocrisy.
It is beautiful that such a person believes even despite all that they have been through, and all that they see of the wrongs of the Muslims.
But the worry is that God confirms them in hypocrisy. And that is the worst of stations.
And that can be especially the case when they do not think and deliberate, and they fail to choose belief over disbelief, hope and openness over poor faith and closedness.
Islam is complete.
And the believers are but brothers one of the other.
END
Written off the cuff, past midnight rambling that ishaAllah I’ll make into a proper blog later.
