Allah loves us all. We measure religion in terms of heaven
and hell. Are we –the civilized society of the twenty first century- so
primitive to think that religion is that limited? That we imagine Allah merely
as punisher of our sins or rewarding of our virtues.
In a very basic naïve perspective it may even be true but
only when you want a two year old to stop stealing or lying. According to very
accepted Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development only a child (implying
a morally immature individual) would do or not do an activity based on the
consequence -reward or punishment respectively- attached to it. However a
morally developed person would weigh things in a more mature manner.
You must not fear Allah in the sense that if you do
something impermissible religion wise, He’ll draw you into a skewer and grill
you alive over a fire which is much fierce than the worldly one. You must fear
him as you fear hurting a beloved.
I remember once when I was deep into the pit of misery my
father told me that he loves me more than the sum of all the love of all the
people in the world and he cannot see me upset, and even though he loves me
that much, there are something he can’t fix for me, but what I must know is
that Allah loves me 70 times more than he does, so obviously Allah wants to see
me upset even less, and luckily for me, He
can fix absolutely anything. That it is only Him who loves me so utterly
unconditionally to grant me all the good and forgive all my bad if only I truly
ask; which made me realize how much I love Allah.
I love my father more than I can love any person in the
whole wide world, and if there is something I’m not supposed to do, something
that might upset him, something I know will hurt him. I will either try not to
do it or if being a typical human –slave to me desires- I go ahead and do something
wrong, I will be sure to keep it from my dad for the fear of upsetting him; not
because I’ll be fearful that he would grill me alive (even if he could).
I’m not comparing human love to the divine one, I must not,
I cannot. The point I am trying to make is that we must love Allah beyond all
possibilities of love and therefore try not to do anything sinful to make sure
we don’t let him down. Because in Allah’s case we don’t have the option to sin
anyway and just make sure it stays hidden from Allah. He is omnipotent. He is
omnipresent. He is infinite. And He loves you very much.
