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CONSTRUCTIVE OR DESTRUCTIVE

When alliance with a person or a thing develops to extreme intensity so much so that it dominates man and becomes his absolute ruler, is called (Ishque). Love is climax of feelings and alliance.

However, it should not be understood that what has been so named is of one kind. It has got two absolutely different kinds. That which is said to bear good consequences is of one kind, but the other kind leads to absolutely harmful and negative consequences.

Human feelings have kinds and degrees. A part of them is for category of lust, particularly sexual lust. It is, for reasons, common to men and all animals. With this difference that, for peculiar and inexplicable reasons, it is found in incalculable proportion and intensity in man, whence it is called love. In animals it is not found to this extent. However, for its nature and kind it is nothing but fury. Reversion and turmoil of sex originates from sexual sources and ends therein. Its intensity and dissipation are concomitants, on the one end is indulgence in sexual intercourse particularly in youthful years, and on the other, i.e. with advance in years, is the diminution of satisfaction and potency or may be their total dissipation. A young man who, on seeing a pretty face and a curly hair, spontaneously shudders, and on touch of a soft hand instantly twists, must know that it is nothing but a material animal phenomenon. Such loves are quick to erupt and still quicker to fade away. It is not dependable or commendable. It is dangerous and humiliating. It yields benefits to man only when it is reinforced with virtue, continence and non-submission i.e., of itself the stimulant leads to no virtue. However, if it penetrates in a man, and is co-existent with virtue and continence and also the soul has withstood its pressure without submitting to it, it would invigorate and augment the soul.

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Man has other feelings also which for their kind and nature are different to lust. It is better to call them affection or in the parlance of the Quran to describe them as 'respect' and 'compassion' Man, as long as he remains under the influence of his lust, does not step out of himself. He wants with intensity the person or the object of his attraction for himself. If he thinks of his beloved, he does so for finding opportunity for cohabitation and maximum satisfaction. It is obvious that conditions like this are neither complementary to nor reformative of human world nor do they purify man's soul. But when man submits to the influence of superior human affection, his beloved enjoys respect and prestige in his view and he wishes the beloved prosperity. He is ready to sacrifice himself for the beloved's object. Such affections bring about purity, rectitude, benevolence, tenderness and selflessness; contrary to this is the first category which gives rise to fury, savagery and debauchery. The love and affection of mother to the son are from this category. The love with and dedication to the saints, the divines, the country, and the ideologies are also from this category.

When the sentiments of this category reach the climax and perfection, they yield all those virtuous consequences that we have detailed above. This is the category, which lends grandeur, individuality and sublimity to the soul as against the first category, which is humiliating. Moreover, this category of love is durable and becomes more forceful and warmer by reunion, as against the first category which is short lived, and fruition is considered to be its grave.

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In the Holy Quran alliance between wife and husband has been described as (respect) and (compassion). It has great significance, it gives indication towards human conjugal life's being superior to animals. It means that the factor of sex is not the only natural relation­ship between spouses. The real tie is to be found in virtue, rectitude and the unity of two souls: In other words, what unify the spouses are the love, respect, virtue and rectitude and not the lust which exists in animals as well.

Maulvi, in his own beautiful style, by creating distinction between lust and respect calls the former to be animal and latter to be human:

Fury and lust are attributes of animals,

Love and tenderness are human qualities;

Such merits are (found) in man;

Love is lacking in animals and it is for their deficiency. :

Even the Philosophers of materialism could not deny this abstract condition in man, which for its being metaphysical is not consistent with their theory of man's being only a superior material animate.

Bertrand Russell in his Book "Marriage and Morals" says:-"Work of which the motive is solely pecuniary cannot have this value, but only work which embodies some kind of devotion, whether to persons, to things, or merely to a vision. And love itself is worthless when it is merely possessive; it is then on a level with work, which is merely pecuniary. In order to have the kind of value of which we are speaking, love must feel the ego of the beloved person as important as one's own ego, and must realize the other's feelings and wishes as though they were one's own".

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Another point, which may be dealt with, and which does invite our attention, lies in our assertion that even sensual love may be beneficial when continence and virtue are its attendants, i.e., once inaccessibility and parting and then continence, virtue and piety bring such poignant grief and anguish, pressure and hardship to soul as yield good and beneficial results. It is in this context that the mystics say that "even carnal love may get transformed into spiritual love, i.e. love with God". This tradition has also been narrated in the same context: Whosoever fell in love, became reticent and practised continence till death, he had a martyr's end. This point should not be lost sight of that this sort of love with all the benefits that in the special circumstances it carries, is not commendable. It is in fact dangerous. Viewed from this aspect it is like a misery, which, if faced ungrudgingly and patiently by a man whom it befalls, is complemen­tary and purifying for him; it ripens the raw and purifies the contaminated. But none would opt misery for himself so as to benefit from this instruc­tive factor, nor on this pretext he can invent misery for others.

Russell elaborately writes on this subject:-

"To a man of sufficient energy, pain may be a valuable stimulus, and I do not deny that if we were all perfectly happy we should not exert ourselves to become happier. But I cannot admit that it is any part of the duty of human beings to provide others with pains on the off chance that it may prove fruitful. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, pain proves merely crushing. In the hundredth case it is better to trust to the natural shocks that flesh is hair to."

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As we know that in teachings of Islam much has been devoted to the benefits and effects of miseries and hardships, and they have (at times) been described as an index of Divine bounty, but on this excuse no one has been allowed to cause misery to himself or to others.

There is yet another difference between love and misery, i.e. love is greater "adversary of wisdom" than any other factor is. Wherever it treads, it dislodges wisdom from authority.

For these reasons love and wisdom have been introduced as two rivals in saintly literature. The rivalry between the philosophers and the saints emanates from this very source, because the former place reliance on and seek confidence from the authority of wisdom while the latter do so from the force of love. In the saintly literature, in the field of this rivalry wisdom has always been recognised to have been dominated and overpowered. Sa'di says:

"The well wishers advise throwing bricks on the Ocean is useless.

Anxiety has upper hand on patience

Claim of wisdom over love is false

Another (poet) says:

"I think the scheme of wisdom in the course of love (is),

"Like dew attempting script on an Ocean".

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The power, which has assumed these proportions, snatches the reins of authority, and in the words of Maulvi "it pulls man from one side to the other as does the storm to a petal of grass".

How could something which according to Russell is "out of anarchic impulses" be commendable?

However, to be occasionally of good effects is one thing and to be commendable is the other.

From here it becomes clear that the objection and criticism of some Muslim jurists on some of the sages of Islam, who have introduced this moot in theology and have described its consequences and effects, are not appro­priate because the former have (wrongly) thought that these sages believed that such a pursuit was desirable and commendable, while the fact remains that they have expressed their views only about useful consequences which it might yield if it is coupled with continence and virtue, without holding it to be desirable and commendable; just like miseries and hardships.