Abul-Qasim al-Husayn b. Muhammad b. al-Mufaddal, better known as Raghib al-Isfahani (“the Monk of Isfahan”), was born in Isfahan, modern-day Iran, and died in around 1108 CE. His most well-known books are his Al-Mufradat fi Gharib al-Quran, a dictionary of rare words in the Quran, and Dhariya’ ila Makarim ash-Shari’ah, or, The Means to the Noble Qualities of the Sacred Law, of which this text is an excerpt (the original Arabic text is here). Imam al-Ghazali was heavily influenced by this work, and is said to have carried it with him at all times. It is a brilliant and beautiful work of adab, akhlaq, and tazkiyah which has yet to be fully translated into English. I translated this in 2022, and it originally appeared in a reading pack for Virtues in the Public Square, an online course I developed on virtue ethics in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It may be republished in whole or in part with attribution.

–Ismail Royer

What is Love and What Are Its Types?

Love is the soul’s inclination to what it sees and thinks is good. Love is of two kinds:

One kind is natural love, and it exists in humans and animals. And it is said that it exists (even) among lifeless things, such as the affinity between iron and magnetic stones.

The other kind is voluntary love, and this is unique to humans. And as for what exists between two animals, it is (merely) affection (not voluntary love). And this type of love itself has four types:¹

The first (type of voluntary love) is due to desire, and this is mostly between the young. 

The second type is due to benefit, and this category includes the affinity between a merchant and artisan, and among the adherents of a school of thought. 

The third type consists of two parties: one who loves another for some benefit, while that other one loves him out of desire. 

And the fourth type of love is love for the sake of virtue, such as the love of a student for a scholar. And this love abides over the passage of time, as in God’s saying:

Friends on that Day will be foes one to another, except the Righteous.² 

And as for the other types of love, their duration may be long or short according to the length or brevity of (the persistence of) their causes.

Friendship is a special type of love that rarely occurs in human society and (the word) is not used except with animals.

As for adoration (‘ishq), it is love in excess. It is blameworthy when it is on account of pleasure and praiseworthy when on account of virtue. But it is never for the sake of benefit, because benefit is intended as (a means to) something else, (whereas) virtue and pleasure are intended for their own sake.

The Virtue of Love

One of the causes of order in the affairs of people is love, and then justice: for if people love one another and work together with love, they have no need for justice. Thus it is said: justice is the substitute of love when love is absent.

And so God has exalted kindness by instilling love among the people of the religion (of Islam). Thus, the Most High said: 

And he has joined their hearts. Had you spent all that is on the earth, it would not have joined their hearts. But God joined them together. Truly He is Mighty, Wise.³

And the Most High said:

Verily, those who believe and do good works, the Most Merciful will bestow love between them.⁴

That is, (He will place) love in the hearts, alerting us that this is more conducive to religion, and better than fear, for indeed fear repels, while love joins.

It is said: Obedience out of love is better than obedience out of fear, for (the source of) obedience due to love is internal; whereas (the source of) obedience due to fear is external, and so it disappears with the disappearance of its cause.⁵

And every people that loves one another will draw together; and if they draw together, they will help one another; and if they help one another, they will work together; and if they work together, they will civilize the earth; and if they civilize the earth, they will live long.

And in order to bring about love with the Sacred Law, God the Most High has legislated that the people of the same religion gather in their mosques five times each day to establish their prayers, and that the people of the same area gather once each week in a central mosque (for Friday congregational prayer), and that the people of a town and the countryside gather twice each year in the graveyard (on the days of Eid),⁶ and that the people of distant lands gather once in their lifetime in Mecca. All of this is to reaffirm their fellowship by coming together: and as a result, love ensues.⁷

The Virtue of Friendship

A friend is needed in all cases: they give help in bad times, and they give comfort and share in goodness in good times. Whoever thinks he has no need for a friend is deluded, and whoever thinks it is easy to find one is an imbecile.

Due to (a friend’s) abundance of benefit, a wise man was once asked about the friend, and he said: “He is you in your soul, though he be other than you in your person.”

And due to the honor of (a friend’s) presence, another (wise man) was asked about it, and he said: “It is a word that has no meaning, for indeed it is an entity that does not exist.”⁸ 

One who finds trustworthy friends will find them to be as his own eyes, ears and hearts. Thus he will see the one who is absent in the form of one who is present. And choosing whom you can rely on to befriend is a difficult matter, for one who is morally defective may cleave to you though you deem him virtuous, (and you will be) as one who discerns only fat where there is a swelling tumor.⁹

The beloved among the people

One whom God has made beloved to the people, He has favored with a vast favor, just as one whom He has made hateful to them has been given a terrible curse.

The cause for one becoming beloved (to the people) is that God cares for him, and so He purifies his nature, refines his soul, and beautifies his actions; then a light comes over him which flows into the hearts of those who see him, so that they love him.

And that is the import of the Most High in his statement to Moses:

And I bestowed upon you love from Me¹⁰

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

“If God loves one of His servants,¹¹ He casts His love into water, so that the servant does not drink it but that it loves him, and if He hates one of His servants, he throws His hate into water, so that the servant does not drink it but that it hates him.”¹²

And when God the Most High cast love upon our Prophet ﷺ, few would come to him with hatred in their hearts except that when such a one saw him and turned his face towards his and listened to his words, he would admire him and part from him on beautiful terms.

Encouraging Companionship with Good People and Avoidance of Evil People

It is a duty upon the human being to seek, with the utmost effort, the company of good people: for truly, it can turn the evil one good, just as the companionship of evil people can turn good people evil.

Some wise ones said: “Whoever has good companionship has secured his blessings. For he shall not be sad who is the companion of the friends of God, though (such a friend) be a mere dog, as the dog of the Companions of the Cave.”¹³ For God the Most High mentioned this in His Exalted Book, saying:

And their dog lay on the threshold, its forepaws outstretched.¹⁴

For this reason, the wise men advised young people to stay away from sitting with fools. The Commander of the Faithful, Ali bin Abi Talib,¹⁵ may God ennoble his face, said: “Do not accompany a wicked person, such that his deeds become beautified for you, and he loves that you become like him.”

And it has been said: Sit with one who reminds you of God when you behold him, and whose speech increases your goodness.

And it is also said: Beware of sitting with the wicked, for character steals from character while you are unaware.

And the Prophet ﷺ said: 

“The similitude of a good companion is that of a maker of fragrances: if he does not give you some of his perfume, then some of his good scent will cling to you. And the similitude of an evil companion is that of a blacksmith: if he does not burn you with his sparks, the stench of his smoke will cling to you.”¹⁶  

And he said, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, “A person is upon the religion of his close friend, so look to whom you take as your close friend.”¹⁷ 

That is, he is attracted by his friend to his religion and his way of thinking, and due to the strength of this meaning and its effect on the souls, there has spread on the tongues the words of the poet:

About a person, do not ask, but ask about his companion

For every companion is comparable to his companion.¹⁸

And the harm one companion inflicts on another lies not only in his nature with respect to his speech and actions, but it lies even in his countenance, for looking at his image affects the character of the souls of those who gaze upon him.

For one who persists in gazing upon the joyful will be joyful, and one who persists in gazing upon the sad will be sad, and that is not only in human beings, but animals and plants as well. For indeed, an obstinate camel may become tame with a tame companion, and a tame camel may become obstinate with an obstinate companion. And fresh basil may wither with a withered companion, and this is why farmers cull shriveled plants from their crops, because they ruin them. And it is known that water and air are spoiled by nearness to a carcass. And this is something that is not denied by a person of practical experience, as when such things happen, their effects are accepted. 

This is what it comes to be: to think of human souls, whose plight is to accept the forms of things, their good and their evil. For it is said that the human being is called “man” (ins) because he is comfortable (ya’nis) with what he sees, whether good or evil.

There are three states of a person in social relations: Either he is disagreeable, that is, ill-natured; or he is a flatterer, that is, slick and smooth-natured; or he is helpful, that is, abandoning disagreement over the requirements of reason: and he (alone) is praiseworthy.

And the duty of man in social relations is to fortify his rational discourse with witty remarks, his anger with demonstrations of forbearance, and his appetites with generosity.¹⁹ And if he is exposed to the opposite of that, then he is courteous to his associates: the obstinate and the gluttonous²⁰ among his brothers; he is patient and cheerful with them, in the hope that they will return to being his brothers; and to be cautious of their evil, such that he is gracious: for graciousness is a way of expressing a desire for unity, a means of living with cheerfulness, tolerance, and gentleness towards those around him.

1. In his classification of the types of friendship, Al-Isfahani follows Aristotle’s classification in Book VIII of his Nicomachean Ethics, as did other ulema of the period such as Miskawayh, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Rushd. However, Aristotle lists only three types. Al-Isfahani lists four, and his third type is a hybrid of the first and second types, recognizing that one party in a relationship may be in it for pleasure while the other may be in it for utility. Cf. Aristotle, Robert C. Bartlett, and Susan D. Collins. 2011. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 166-169. ↩︎
2. Quran, Surah Zukhruf 43:67 ↩︎
3. Quran, Surah Anfal 8:63 ↩︎
4. Quran, Surah Maryam 19:96 ↩︎
5. Compare Al-Isfahani’s view with that of Macchiavelli, who asks, “is it better to be loved than feared, or to be feared than loved?” His answer: “a prince would like to be both. But since it is difficult to reconcile these two, it is much safer to be feared than loved–if the one must cede to the other.” Niccolo Machiavelli. The Prince. 1976. Indianapolis: Hackett, 271.  ↩︎
6. It is a tradition in many Muslim lands to visit the graveyards on the two days of Eid, although it is not specifically mentioned in the source texts of Islamic law. ↩︎
7. This passage parallels Aristotle’s observation that religious festivals conduce to civic friendship and political community. See Bartlett, et al, 177-178. ↩︎
8. Literally, “It is an animal that does not exist.” ↩︎
9. The simile appears to be that one who mistakes a morally defective companion for a virtuous friend is like one who mistakes a noxious tumor for healthy fat. ↩︎
10. Quran, Surah Taha 20:39 ↩︎
11. “Servant” (‘abd) in this context means any human being, as human beings are all servants of God: willingly, insofar as they believe in Him and submit to His commands, or unwillingly, insofar as all creation is subject to His will. ↩︎
12. Commentators on Isfahani’s treatise have been unable to locate the source of this narration attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, so the reader should not assume that it is authentic. However, there is an authentic narration from the Prophet ﷺ found in Sahih Muslim which states: 
    
    When God loves a servant, He calls Gabriel and says: Verily, I love so and so; you should also love him, and then Gabriel begins to love him. Then he makes an announcement in heaven saying: God loves so and so and you also love him, and then the inhabitants of heaven (the angels) also begin to love him and then honor is conferred upon him in the earth. And when God is angry with any servant He calls Gabriel and says: I am angry with so and so and you also should become angry with him, and then Gabriel also becomes angry and then makes an announcement amongst the inhabitants of heaven: Verily God is angry with so and so, so you also become angry with him, and thus they also become angry with him. Then he becomes the object of wrath on the earth also. ↩︎
13. The reference is to the story of the Companions of the Cave, told in the eighteenth chapter of the Quran, verses 9-26. It recalls a group of young believers, typically understood to be followers of Jesus, who were persecuted for refusing to worship idols and sought refuge in a cave. In a miracle of God, they slept for hundreds of years, while their dog kept watch over them. When the young men awoke and emerged from the cave, they went to a nearby town and were greeted with wonder. This story is often identified with the miracle of the Sleepers of Ephesus found in Christian sources dating from the fifth century. Here, Isfahani is identifying the dog who kept watch over the sleepers as a friend of God worthy of companionship. ↩︎
14. Quran, Surah Kahf 18:18 ↩︎
15. The cousin, companion, and son-in-law of the Prophet ﷺ, and the fourth caliph of Islam, d. 661 AD. ↩︎
16. A narration with the same meaning but slightly different terminology is found in the collections of Bukhari and Muslim. The precise wording used here by Isfahani does not seem to appear in the collections of hadith, though it is very similar to narrations collected by Ibn Hibban, Abu Ya’la, Shihab al-Qudhai, and others. ↩︎
17. Narrated by Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Ahmed, and others. ↩︎
18. This is a line from a poem attributed to Adi ibn Zayd al-Ibadi al-Tamimi, a 6th-century Arab Christian poet who lived before the advent of Islam. ↩︎
19. Isfahani is saying that the three faculties of the human being–his rational, emotional, and appetitive aspects–must be tempered by the exercise of virtues corresponding to those faculties if he is to be just in his social relations, and more generally, that every individual must do this if society as a whole is to flourish. ↩︎
20. That is, people who are ruled by their lower appetites and desires. ↩︎