Re: Define Divine Love
Nisha, I think a lot has already been said in this thread and its been a nice discussion. There have been tangents but some very good ones as well.
Its been a while since I’ve visited this site but I still feel like commenting in this thread.
The very first thing I would like to underline is the terminology “unconditional love”. We first need to understand what exactly love is all about before we set the conditions for it. Love has many connotations such as lust, desire, affection, welfare, sentiments etc. Most of the time when discussing this with someone who is not muslim, their understanding encapsulates love in the form of human characteristics and they tend to measure the conduct of Allah SWT by the same yard stick as they would measure other humans. This is the first premise where reconciliation between opinions of muslims and non-muslims (who do not understand the concept of God) becomes a moot point.
Our prophet SAW demonstrated the boundaries of what it means to be unconditional love from the perspective of a muslim in many aspects of life. And this does not mean that other prophets did not do so, all prophets of Allah SWT have demonstrated this is some capacity in their times and in their original teachings.
In your first example, where you mention how can one love another human who tortures them or abuses them. I agree this is a very difficult emotion to understand when you hear us say that we should still love them for the sake of Allah SWT. I fail to understand how such a person could be a sadist for loving their tormentor, a sadist is the one who loves or enjoys infliciting cruelty. I think you got this the other way round. Loving such a person would not mean to approve of his actions but to pray and ask for his welfare so that Allah SWT may guide him. Its the love you should feel for seeing another human going to waste by virtue of his misguided and hideous actions. I would say emotion not love. You would experience two conflicting emotions, one of hatred so that the person could be brought to justice for his actions and one for welfare so that he may be corrected and not harm others. How you choose to show your emotions should be circumstantial and contingent on consequences. A brief example can be quoted from the life of the Prophet SAW when he was bruised and beaten in the city of Taif, when he exited the city angels came to him asking for his approval to crush the city with the mountains which surround it. The emotion which the Prophet SAW chose to act upon demonatrates a connotation of love for which he cared about. He chose to spare them in hopes that they might one day become muslims and believers in Allah SWT. It was his love for humanity in that they should be given the chance to benefit from the teachings of Allah SWT in the future rather than be eluded of that chance. So love has many facets but what defines it is the emotion upon which it is based upon and what consequences you look for from it.
As for your second example about catastrophes. Its interesting that you mention about questioning. I would imagine there hardly exists a human being who does not question what happens around them and tries not to understand their part in it. If you keep up with your questioning I’m sure you can ponder upon the answers you come up with, do these phenomena happen because Allah SWT is intentionally orchestrating them upon us (not to say that Allah SWT cannot or has not or will not change the course of nature when need be) or is it because of the way the universe operates and interacts. Allah SWT has set the operational boundaries for this universe and has allowed us to question, ponder and think about what happens in nature and to infer from it. If you build a house in a floodzone and one day your house gets washed away, would you find peace in saying that Allah SWT does not love you or by accepting the consequences of living in a floodzone. Can you say that Allah SWT does not love us just because their exists forces of nature around us which our human power and intelligence cannot control and we often fall victim to? We live in a universe where we are not the most powerful and there are consequences of interactions between forces which are more powerful than us, these are things which are understood by questioning, by taking those horse blinders off not by saying that Allah SWT should also love us unconditionally. Allah SWT has created a universe for us which is more than enough to keep our intellect busy, all He SWT asks us is to recognize his role in it and His SWT role in creating us while we peck away at his universe and his creations including ourselves.