بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Islamic Concept of Love
There is perhaps no word more flattened in modern speech than the word love. It is used for desire, preference, tenderness, obsession, loyalty, comfort, mercy, and even self-worship, as though all these were one and the same thing. The Qur’an does not speak this way. Nor does the Sunnah. Instead, revelation educates the heart by naming its attachments carefully. What English often compresses into one word opens, in classical Islamic writing, into a family of words: حب (hubb), ود (wudd), مودة (mawaddah), رحمة (rahmah), رأفة (ra’fah), حنان (hanan), خلة (khullah), سكن (sakan), ولاية (wilayah), رفق (rifq), نصيحة (nasihah), صحبة (suhbah), صلة (silah), and then, in later literary and Sufi writing, terms such as شوق (shawq), أنس (uns), وجد (wajd), غرام (gharam), and عشق (‘ishq).
It seems to me that one of the great beauties of the Islamic tradition is that it does not deny the heart, but it does not flatter it either. It neither reduces love to appetite, nor strips religion of tenderness. Rather, it asks: What does the heart love? In what way does it love? What fruit does that love bear? And does that attachment draw the servant nearer to Allah, or deeper into his own nafs?
The subject becomes much clearer if we approach it in three circles. The first circle is the Qur’an. It gives the foundational vocabulary. The second circle is the sahih Sunnah. It turns that vocabulary into conduct. The third circle is later classical Arabic: lexicography, adab, poetry, and Sufi reflection. That third circle is often rich and illuminating, but it is not on the same level as revealed speech. This order matters, especially when later poetic language becomes more excessive than the measured language of the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
The Qur’an: love as appropriately ordered/measured attachment
The broadest and most central Qur’anic word for love is حب.
وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِلَّهِ
“Those who believe are stronger in love for Allah.”
(al-Baqarah 2:165)
And Allah says:
يُحِبُّهُمْ وَيُحِبُّونَهُ
“He loves them, and they love Him.”
(al-Ma’idah 5:54)
Classical lexicographers note that the root ح ب ب carries the sense of لزوم and ثبات: adhesion, abiding, remaining with something. This is very deep. Love in the Qur’an is not merely a passing mood. It is what the heart cleaves to, settles upon, and prefers. In this sense, hubb is not only affection. It is valuation. It shows what the soul honors, what it holds dear, and what it is unwilling to leave.
Closely related to this is ود and مودة.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَيَجْعَلُ لَهُمُ الرَّحْمَنُ وُدًّا
“Surely those who believe and do righteous deeds, the Most Merciful will place for them love.”
(Maryam 19:96)
And in the famous verse of marriage:
وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُمْ مَوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً
“And among His signs is that He created for you, from yourselves, spouses, that you may find repose in them, and He placed between you affection and mercy.”
(al-Rum 30:21)
If hubb is the broader canopy, then wudd and mawaddah feel warmer and more relational. They are love as affectionate warmth placed between hearts. This is reinforced by the Divine Name الودود. It seems to me that the Qur’an is teaching us that not all love is of one kind: some love is broad devotion, while some is tenderness shared in relationship and made visible in how hearts are joined.
Then there is the mercy-family: رحمة، رأفة، and حنان.
وَجَعَلْنَا فِي قُلُوبِ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوهُ رَأْفَةً وَرَحْمَةً
“And We placed in the hearts of those who followed him tenderness and mercy.”
(al-Hadid 57:27)
And regarding Yahya عليه السلام:
وَحَنَانًا مِنْ لَدُنَّا وَزَكَاةً
“And tenderness from Us, and purity.”
(Maryam 19:13)
Ibn Faris says the root ر ح م points to الرقة والعطف والرأفة: tenderness, inclined care, and compassion. He also links رحم to kinship and to the womb. That connection is not ornamental. It suggests that mercy, in the Qur’anic sense, is intimate, sheltering, and life-bearing. This is why the marital verse does not say only مودة. It says مودة ورحمة. Affection alone is not yet the whole of love. Love, if it is to endure and be true, must also take responsibility for the good of the other.
The commentators then make finer distinctions. رأفة is explained as a more delicate and intensified softness. حنان is glossed by classical tafsir as رحمة and تعطف. So one might put it this way: mawaddah is warm affection, rahmah is caring mercy, ra’fah is tender sparing compassion, and hanan is tenderness warmed by nearness.
The Qur’an also teaches that love is not only warmth. It is also nearness, loyalty, and rest.
وَاتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ خَلِيلًا
“And Allah took Ibrahim as a khalil.”
(al-Nisa’ 4:125)
The commentators treat خلة as one of the highest ranks of love. Ibn Kathir explicitly says that it is among the loftiest stations of محبة.
Khalīl suggests deep intimacy and special friendship. The “inner cavity” associated with this meaning is
خَلَ (khalal) and by extension
خِلَال / خُلَّة (khilāl / khullah)
خَلَلُ الشَّيْءِ : the interstices, inner spaces, gaps within something
تَخَلُّلُ الشَّيْءِ : something entering into and permeating those inner spaces
when classical scholars explain الخُلَّة, they say:
هي المودّة التي تخلّلت القلب
“It is a love that has permeated the heart.”
So khalil is a more powerful expression of endearment, and it would have been problematic that Ibrahim - may peace be upon him- be the only one named khalil but for a hadith.
Al-Tabari explains the verse through meanings that include love, loyalty, and divine support. Beside this stands ولاية. The root و ل ي, according to Ibn Faris, revolves around قرب, nearness. So wilayah is not simply emotional fondness. It is protective nearness, support, allegiance, and standing with the beloved. In this sense, khullah is inward intimacy, while wilayah is love translated into guardianship and loyalty.
Another beautiful Qur’anic word is سكن.
لِتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا
“That you may find repose in them.”
(al-Rum 30:21)
Ibn Faris says the root س ك ن denotes the opposite of agitation and movement, and he adds that السكن is anything beloved to which one comes to rest. This is one of the most beautiful correctives to shallow ideas of love. Mature love is not only flame. It is also repose. It is a quieting of disturbance. Related to this is ألفة and تأليف. Allah says:
فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ
“Then He brought your hearts together.”
(Āl ‘Imran 3:103)
and:
وَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِهِمْ
“And He joined their hearts together.”
(al-Anfal 8:63)
So the Qur’anic concept of love includes concord after enmity, fraternity after division, and repose after unrest.
But the Qur’an does not praise every intensity. It distinguishes noble love from disordered attachment.
قَدْ شَغَفَهَا حُبًّا
“He has penetrated her with love.”
(Yusuf 12:30)
Al-Tabari records explanations that this love reached the inner sheath of the heart. This is not serene, disciplined affection. It is overpowering fixation. Likewise, the Qur’an censures هوى when desire becomes master:
أَفَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُ
“Have you seen the one who has taken his desire as his god?”
(al-Jathiyah 45:23)
This seems to me one of the deepest Qur’anic lessons on the subject. Not everything intense is noble. Love is not praised merely because it is strong. It is praised when it is truthful, rightly ordered, and governed by remembrance of Allah rather than by the tyranny of appetite.
The Sunnah: love becoming conduct
If the Qur’an gives us the main vocabulary, the Sunnah shows what that vocabulary looks like when it lives among people.
One of the most comprehensive prophetic descriptions is this:
مَثَلُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي تَوَادِّهِمْ وَتَرَاحُمِهِمْ وَتَعَاطُفِهِمْ مَثَلُ الْجَسَدِ
“The likeness of the believers in their mutual affection, mutual mercy, and mutual sympathy is that of one body.”
This hadith is remarkable. It does not use one word only. It uses three: توادّ، تراحم، and تعاطف. Their combination matters. Tawadd is mutual affection, tarahum is mutual mercy, and ta‘atuf is sympathetic inward leaning toward another’s pain. In other words, Prophetic love is not a vague feeling. It is a shared moral life in which one believer does not remain untouched by the hurt of another.
The same movement appears in the famous hadith:
لا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى يُحِبَّ لأَخِيهِ مَا يُحِبُّ لِنَفْسِهِ
“None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
This is one of the most searching definitions of love in the entire tradition. It makes love a test of sincerity and freedom from envy. It takes love out of the language of private sentiment and places it inside justice of the heart. One has not fully learned love if one still wants goodness to remain private.
The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم also teaches that love can be cultivated through outward acts:
لا تَدْخُلُونَ الْجَنَّةَ حَتَّى تُؤْمِنُوا، وَلَا تُؤْمِنُوا حَتَّى تَحَابُّوا... أَفْشُوا السَّلَامَ بَيْنَكُمْ
“You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another... Spread salam among yourselves.”
This is profoundly practical. Love is not only awaited as a feeling. It is also grown through acts of recognition, safety, courtesy, and goodwill.
The hadith literature then gives us not only direct love-words, but also the textures of love.
Among the most important of these is رفق. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said:
إِنَّ اللَّهَ رَفِيقٌ يُحِبُّ الرِّفْقَ
“Indeed Allah is Gentle and He loves gentleness.”
Ibn Faris says the root ر ف ق points to موافقة ومقاربة بلا عنف: accord and approach without harshness. This is very important. Love is not only about what one wants for another person. It is also about the manner in which one handles them. A heart may claim mercy, while the tongue and hand remain rough. Rifq corrects this. It is love in its manner.
Another great hadith word is نصيحة.
إِنَّ الدِّينَ النَّصِيحَةُ
“The religion is nasihah.”
Ibn Faris says the root ن ص ح points to fittingness and repair. He links it to sewing, mending, and to purity free from adulteration. This is why nasihah is much larger than “advice.” It is sincere goodwill, moral repair, and wanting another person’s condition to be made sound. It is love purified of self-display.
Then there is صحبة. A man asked the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم who was most deserving of his best companionship, and the answer came: your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father. Here love is not romantic intensity. It is lived companionship, repeated care, and sustained presence. Likewise, the hadith البِرُّ حُسْنُ الْخُلُقِ shows that birr is love translated into character. It is not merely what is felt inwardly; it is what becomes visible in conduct.
Even صلة الرحم belongs to this field of love. The bond of kinship is not treated as a cold social arrangement. It is linked, in Prophetic language, to the very root of رحمة itself:
الرَّحِمُ شَجْنَةٌ مِنَ الرَّحْمَنِ
“The womb-bond is a branch woven from the All-Merciful.”
This is one of the most arresting formulations in the hadith literature. Family ties are not presented merely as custom. They are woven into mercy. To maintain them is not only etiquette. It is fidelity to a mercy-shaped order.
Later classical Arabic: finer gradations of love
Once we move beyond the Qur’an and sahih hadith into later classical Arabic writing, especially lexicography, adab, poetry, and Sufi reflection, the vocabulary becomes much more finely shaded.
Ibn al-Qayyim, in Rawdat al-Muhibbin, says Arabic gave love many names, then proceeds to list a long series: العلاقة، الهوى، الصبوة، الصبابة، الشغف، الوجد، الكلف، التتيم، العشق، الجوى، الشوق، الغرام، الهيام، الوله and more. This by itself tells us something important: later Arabic reflection did not treat love as one flat emotion, but as a spectrum of states, intensities, wounds, and nearnesses.
Some of these later terms are especially useful.
العلاقة is attachment: the first fastening of the heart.
الصبابة is melted longing: the soft, heated pouring out of the heart.
الشغف is love reaching the inner layers of the heart.
الوجد in broader literary usage can mean powerful inward disturbance, but in later technical Sufi usage it becomes more specific.
الكلف is burdened infatuation, love that becomes costly to carry.
التتيم is enthrallment, love becoming a kind of inward servitude.
الجوى is inner burning.
الغرام is clinging, adhesive passion that does not easily depart.
الهيام is wandering, destabilizing love.
الوله is bewildered love, love that shakes composure.
Among all these later terms, عشق is perhaps the most discussed.
Ibn al-Qayyim quotes the old lexicographers:
العشق فرط الحب
“‘Ishq is love in excess.”
This is why many later Sunni writers are cautious with the term, especially when speaking about Allah. The Qur’an and the Sunnah teach us حب، مودة، رحمة، and خلة. But ‘ishq in much later Arabic carries the sense of overgrowth, excess, and fixation. My own view is that this caution is sound. The revealed vocabulary has balance, gravity, and proportion, whereas some later poetic terms carry a fever that is not always suitable for theological speech.
Sufi usage: yearning, intimacy, awe
The Sufi tradition, at its best, adds another layer to this subject. It often uses terms that are more inward and more disciplined than the language of romance.
One of the most important of these is شوق. Ibn al-Qayyim says:
الشوق سفر القلب إلى المحبوب
“Longing is the journey of the heart toward the beloved.”
This is a beautiful definition. Shawq is not merely wanting. It is love under the condition of distance. It is the heart moving toward what it knows, but has not yet fully attained.
Then there is أنس and هيبة. Al-Qushayri places them together and says they stand above lower emotional states: haybah is awe before majesty, and uns is intimacy, ease, and sweetness in nearness. This pairing is very important. Intimacy without awe can become irreverence. Awe without intimacy can become coldness. The more balanced Sufi writers refuse both distortions.
And then there is وجد and تواجد. Al-Jurjani defines wajd as:
الوجد: ما يصادف القلب ويرد عليه بلا تكلف وتصنع
“Wajd is what meets the heart and comes upon it without contrivance or affectation.”
Whereas tawajud is:
التواجد: استدعاء الوجد تكلفًا
“Tawajud is the summoning of wajd by effort and affectation.”
This distinction is subtle, but very telling. Mature mystical writing does not worship emotion for its own sake. It distinguishes between what is granted and what is staged, between visitation and performance.
What, then, is the Islamic concept of love?
If I had to state it simply, I would say this:
The Islamic concept of love is not one emotion, and it is not one word. It is an ordered vocabulary of attachment.
At its center stands حب الله: loving Allah, and being loved by Him. Around it come مودة as affectionate warmth, رحمة as caring mercy, رأفة as tender compassion, حنان as tenderness, خلة as intimate fidelity, ولاية as protective nearness, سكن as repose, and ألفة as concord. The Sunnah then turns these into daily character through تواد، تراحم، تعاطف، رفق، نصيحة، صحبة، بر، and صلة الرحم. Later Arabic literature adds more delicate shades of longing, intimacy, awe, and excess, but revelation remains the criterion by which those later shades are judged.
This, in my view, is the central correction that Islamic writing offers to modern speech about love. Islam does not ask the human being to become loveless in order to become pious. It asks that his loves be purified, ranked, disciplined, and returned to their rightful center. When love is severed from truth, it becomes هوى. When it is joined to mercy, loyalty, and remembrance of Allah, it becomes one of the most luminous realities in the believer’s life.
Notes
On حب as the broad Qur’anic canopy of love, and the lexical note that the root carries لزوم and ثبات, see Ibn Faris, Maqayis al-Lughah, root حب; and the Qur’anic uses in 2:165 and 5:54. (Islamweb)
On ود / مودة as affectionate love, see Ibn Faris, root ود; Qur’an 30:21 and 19:96; al-Tabari and al-Baghawi on 19:96; and the Divine Name الودود in 85:14. (Islamweb)
On رحمة and its root meaning of tenderness and inclined care, see Ibn Faris, root رحم. On حنان as mercy / tenderness, see Ibn Kathir, al-Baghawi, and al-Qurtubi on 19:13. On رأفة and رحمة together, and the explanation that رأفة is a more delicate or intensified softness, see the tafsir on 57:27. (Islamweb)
On خلة as a high rank of love and ولاية as nearness, support, and protective closeness, see Qur’an 4:125; Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari on that verse; and Ibn Faris, root ولي. (Quran.com)
On سكن as repose and rest in what is beloved, see Ibn Faris, root سكن; on ألفة / تأليف as hearts being joined together, see Ibn Faris, root ألف; and Qur’an 30:21, 3:103, and 8:63. (Islamweb)
On شغف as love penetrating the heart in 12:30, see the verse and al-Tabari’s tafsir there. On هوى as desire enthroned, see 45:23 and Ibn Kathir’s explanation of the verse. (Quran.com)
On the hadith vocabulary of love in action, see: “the believers in their mutual affection, mercy, and sympathy are like one body” (Bukhari/Muslim); “none of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself”; “you will not believe until you love one another … spread salam among yourselves”; “Allah is Gentle and He loves gentleness”; “the religion is nasihah”; “who is most deserving of my best companionship?”; and “al-birr is good character.” For the lexical roots of رفق and نصيحة, see Ibn Faris on roots رفق and نصح. (dorar.net)
On صلة الرحم and the prophetic image الرحم شجنة من الرحمن, see the hadith reports gathered in Dorar; and compare with Ibn Faris on the root رحم linking mercy, kinship, and the womb. (dorar.net)
On later classical Arabic and Sufi vocabulary: see Ibn al-Qayyim’s Rawdat al-Muhibbin for the many names of love and the statement العشق فرط الحب; his definition الشوق سفر القلب إلى المحبوب; al-Qushayri on الهيبة and الأنس; and al-Jurjani on الوجد and التواجد. (Shamela)
