IS the love of God separate from the love of human beings, His creatures? Many religious traditions, including Islam, see them as supplementary and complementary. We learn through interesting episodes and stories in sacred books or from the sayings of messengers and mystics that love of human beings is actually the love of God. In this article, we look at faith traditions and their demonstration of the humanistic calling.

A powerful hadith qudsi which is attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) leaves us in no doubt about the love for human beings and the importance of this in the eyes of God. According to the hadith, Allah Almighty will say on the Day of Resurrection: ‘O son of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me. He will say: My Lord, how can I visit You when You are the Lord of the worlds? Allah will say: Did you not know that My servant was sick and you did not visit him, and had you visited him you would have found Me with him? (Sahih Muslim).

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The hadith highlights the importance of looking after human beings in whatever manner one can. There are so many traditions that reflect the Prophet’s insistence on looking after God’s creatures, especially human beings. On being asked as to who was a true Muslim or the best Muslim, he is said to have responded that it was “… the one from whose tongue and hand Muslims are safe…”.

A very meaningful story in the vein in which we talk about the love for human beings, is about the Muslim mystic Abu Bin Adhem (d. 777). It is narrated that once he was woken up from his peaceful slumber. Looking around his moonlit bedroom, Abu Bin Adhem noticed that the chamber was filled with a sense of pure loveliness — something akin to a blooming lily — because of the presence of an angel who was writing in a golden book. Looking up compassionately, the angel said that it was making a list of the people who loved God. The mystic asked the angel if his name was included in the list. The angel replied that it was not. Unworried, Abu Bin Adhem implored the angel to record his name in the list of those that love (God’s) people.

Does not loving people mean loving God?

The next night, the angel returned with a second list of those who were blessed by God. Bin Adhem’s name was at the top of the list this time, suggesting that God favoured those who loved their fellow human beings — indeed, it shows that love for other people is the best way to earn the love of the Almighty.

Let me quote another powerful story that supplements this message of love for God’s creatures. John Henry Newman, a theologian who lived in the 19th century, narrated how, figuratively, he climbed high to find God and how he was responded to: “I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: ‘Go down again — I dwell among the people’.” This is indeed a powerful symbolic story that tells the reader that God is not aloof from His creatures, but that He is actually among, and, in fact, within them.

The Holy Quran very powerfully says, “We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein (50: 16). If God lives among the people, does not loving people mean loving God? If God is in everybody, what does killing a person mean?

I was quite impressed by a talk, in a similar vein, by a well-known preacher who drew our attention to this subject in an apt manner in one of his talks. He lamented that he saw lots of people praying, fasting and performing pilgrimages, but found fewer who were good to each other. He said that if in today’s world you want to compete in good deeds and reach God faster than the others, we should take the path of being good to the people. At this point, we can recall the great Altaf Hussain Hali’s famous verse which so beautifully tells us that “Helping one human to another (in need) is what is (the meaning of) worship, religion, and faith.” Sa’adi, the famous poet, metaphorises humanity as one human organic body. If one limb feels pain, the rest of the body also becomes restless.

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Maulana Rumi says that pleasing a heart is the biggest pilgrimage, because a heart is better than a thousand temples. Temples are made by humans; hearts are made by the Divine, and they are the locus of the Divine spark. In the context of the subcontinent, we find ’awlia, Sufi masters, and other compassionate sages always emphasising love for human beings.

In sum, our origin is from ‘nafs wahida’ and we will be resurrected as one ‘nafs wahida’ (Surah 31: 28). Should we all then not love each other as our own reflections? Perhaps it is in this sense that saving a life means saving entire humanity (Surah 5: 32), because in transcendence we perhaps are as one soul, one reality.

The writer is an educationist with an interest in the study of religion and philosophy.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2021