The Concept of Divine Love (Ishq-e-Haqiqi) in Islamic Sufism: A Comparative Study with Modern Philosophy of Love

Abstract

This paper examines the deep meaning of ʿIshq-e-Haqiqi (Divine Love) within the Islamic Sufism, and makes a comparison with the contemporary philosophical conceptualization of love. Divine Love in the Sufi philosophy is the ultimate state of spirituality with which the human soul becomes united with the Divine beyond all the obligations and desires of the world. It is not just a feeling of emotion or romance but a kind of change that results in self purification (tazkiyah al-nafs) and spiritual enlightenment. Classical Sufi teachers, including Rabi al-Basri, Jalal al-Din Rumi and Ibn ʿArab 2, also understood love as the axis of human life, the expression of God by the annihilation (fanāʾ) and subsistence (baq) of the soul in Him. Conversely, the current philosophy explains love in the psychological, moral, and existential terms. Philosophers such as Sren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Erich Fromm consider love a moral obligation, a fight of recognition or a performance of creative will which confirms human liberation and meaning. Unlike Sufism, which finds love in the relation of the Divine and human, contemporary philosophy can tend to interpret love as a way of fulfilling the potential of human beings and their authenticity in a secular environment. By comparing them, this study can show that even though these traditions have different metaphysical premises, both of them consider love as an agent of change and a power that is uniting one that overcomes egoism and makes people connected to a larger reality, divine or existential. However, the bottom line of this study is that Sufi ʿIshq-e-Haqiqi and modern understanding of love both require self-surpassing, moral elevation and ultimate truth and unity and as such, they therefore represent the time-tested vision of human fulfillment in the modern era.

Keywords: Islamic Sufism, Divine Love (ʿIshq-e-Haqiqi), Modern Philosophy of Love, Mysticism and Spirituality, Existentialism and Ethics, Comparative Philosophy, Self-Transcendence and Unity