What Muslim Scholars Talk About When They Talk About Love – Marion Katz

Scholars often assume that love is a concern alien to Islamic legal discourses. However, the composition of love poetry has been a core cultural competence of elite Muslims throughout the premodern history of Islamicate societies. In fact, love was a preoccupation across disciplines and genres. This article examines a work on love by an important if controversial fourteenth-century jurist, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya. Ibn Taymīya associates love with obedience to God and with solidarity among the believers. He depicts love as cognitively based; while human beings are naturally inclined to various forms of infatuation, love can be redirected to its proper objects (primarily God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other believers) through correct religious instruction. While this understanding of love may seem to contrast with the more universalistic approach popularly associated with Sufism, it resonates with recent scholarship outside of Islamic studies that demonstrates the role of love in sustaining boundaries and hierarchy.