Love

Soon God brings forth a people;

He will love them.

They will love Him.

— Quran

This is God’s command: Love and Justice.

— Quran

And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in
them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who
give thought.

— Quran

God is beautiful and loves Beauty.

— Hadith

No matter what I say to explain and elucidate Love,

shame overcomes me when I come to Love itself.

— Rumi, Mathnawi I, 112

Love cannot be found in erudition and science, books and pages.

Whatever is discussed by people — that is not the way of lovers.

— Rumi, Divan-e Shams 4182

What is Love? Perfect thirst. So let me explain the Water of Life.

— Rumi, Divan-e Shams 17361

Like Adam and Eve, Love gives birth to a thousand forms;

the world is full of its paintings, but it has no form.

— Rumi, Divan-e Shams, 5057

My religion is to be alive through Love:

To live only from this animal soul and head is disgrace.

The sword of Love sheds the dust from the lover’s soul.

Only love’s blade can sever us from our sins.

When the carnal dust is gone, my moon shines:

the moon of my spirit appears in an open sky.

For so long I’ve been beating this drum of love

for You whom I adore to the melody of

See how my life depends on dying.

— Rumi, Mathnawi VI, 4059–62

Love is to see what is good and beautiful in everything. It is to learn from everything, to see the
gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything. It is to be thankful for all of God’s bounties.
This is the first step on the road to the love of God. This is just a seed of love. In time, the seed will
grow and become a tree and bear fruit. Then, whoever tastes of that fruit will know what real love
is. It will be difficult for those who have tasted to tell of it to those who have not.

— Sheikh Muzaffer Özak

Be the captive of Love in order that you may be truly free — free from coldness and the worship of
self. Thousands have passed who were wise and learned but who were strangers to Love. No name
is left of them, nothing to proclaim their fame and dignity or to relate their history in the march of
time. Although you may attempt to do a hundred things in this world, only Love will give you
release from the bondage of yourself.

— Jami
All the hopes, desires, loves, and affections that people have for different things — fathers, mothers,
friends, heavens, the earth, gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink — the saint knows that
these are desires for God and all those things are veils. When men leave the world and see the King
without these veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings, that the object of their
desire was in reality that One Thing. All their difficulties will be solved, all the questions and
perplexities they had in their breasts will be answered. They will see all things face to face.

In man there is love, a pain, an itch, and a desire such that, if a hundred thousand worlds were to
become his property, he would still gain no rest or ease. These people occupy themselves
thoroughly with every kind of craft, skill and position; they learn astronomy, medicine, and other
things, but they do not find ease, since their goal has not been attained. After all, the Beloved is
called “heart’s ease,” since the heart finds ease through Him. So how could it find ease and peace
through others?

All these diversions and goals are like a ladder. Since the rungs of a ladder are no place to take up
residence, but exist only so that you can pass on, happy is he who quickly comes to himself and
awareness! Then the long road becomes short, and he does not waste his life on the ladder’s rungs.

— Rumi, Fihi Ma Fih, 35-75

The Beloved is closer to me

Than my own self

The problem is this:

I am far from Him

What am I to do?

Whom can I tell about this?

The Beloved is so close to me

And I am far away

— Saadi
By love, bitter things are made sweet and copper turns to gold.

By love, the sediment becomes clear and torment is removed.

By love, the dead are made to live.

By love, the sovereign is made a slave.

This love is the fruit of knowledge.

When did folly sit on a throne like this?

The faith of love is separated from all religion.

For lovers the faith and the religion is God.

O spirit, in striving and seeking become like running water.

O reason, at all times be ready to give up mortality

for the sake of immortality.

Remember God always, that self may be forgotten,

so that yourself may be effaced in the One to Whom you pray,

without care for who is praying, or the prayer.

— Rumi

O Lord, nourish me not with love but with the desire for love.

— Ibn ‘Arabi

You are more than this beastly form

Humanity is chivalry and grace.

It’s no great skill to conquer the whole world

If you can love someone.

— Saadi