For the next few days I’m going to be working on a risalah about ‘Love’ more specifically what is love and why one should love Allah, and why that love takes precedence over all other types of “love”. For classical books, I will be leaning heavily on the works of Ibn Qayyim, more specifically his book The Sickness and the Cure, and using some of Imam Ghazalis work for reference. For Modern works I will looking through and reviewing Love for Allah by Zulfiqar Ahmad, and books like “Don’t be Sad“. For a western perspective in order put into perspective the ideas of love we are most exposed to in media around the world, I will reference the greek classics, but more directly the book The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis who attempts to contextualize the Greek ideas of love in a christian perspective, and articles from Psychology today who look at them in a more methodical manner.
Because the issue of love is so closely related to that of Iman, those books of aqidah will also be consulted in order to paint a full picture on why Love for Allah is needed to be chief among all loves, despite (and because of) having to first know who Allah is in order to love him.
