What is Love!

What is Love!

By Hwaa Irfan

Before William Shakespeare romanticized Valentine’s Day, ushering an annual event that has fed industries, and misguided hearts, Valentine’s Day did not have such a pretty face.

Part of this day’s history has roots in the 3^rd century AD when two men both called Valentine, were executed on February 14 under the orders of Emperor Claudius II. The Catholic Church then honored the these men by commemorating the day as Valentine’s Day. Then there were abusive gender relations as abusive as today, during the feast of Lupercalia which took place from 13 – 15 February. During this feast, women were whipped with the hides of sacrificial goats and dogs by drunken men, and a matchmaking lottery was drawn for non-committal relations.

More recent than the above, researchers at the University of Minnesota, and the University of Illinois explored the rich data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, and found that:

• The partner with the least commitment is the most influential in a relationship
• An imbalanced relationship has the most hostility
• Reciprocity in commitment of both parties is what makes a stable relationship
• There is greater tolerance in a relationship that has reciprocal levels of commitment

A child learns to manage their emotions and relations from the stability of parents who both reciprocate when it comes to commitment!

We very much underestimate the power of choice, and how much this one single gift, which Allah (SWT) gave over all other creatures plays in our lives. Generally, most people do not make their own choices. What actually happens is that people ‘choose’ to do like or dislike something. Because somebody else likes or dislikes something, or we listen/watch the kind of shows/programs that feed us with information as to what we should like and then after a while we find ourselves liking that piece of music, or buying that piece of clothing because we are told it is fashionable. The most popular one though is ‘love’. We have been told what love is thousands of time through thousands of songs, films, videos, stories etc, and we actually believe that, that version of ‘what love is’ is the correct one. No one can tell us any different now, because our lower emotions have ‘bought the deal’. We sincerely  believe that, that kind of love, the kind of love that ruins lives, the kind of love which is unsustainable, the kind of love that we neglect our families over, ourselves over, our own potential over is ‘love’. When we believe something so much, what happens to our hearts, is that it actually becomes selfish, clannish, almost tribalistic. We become possessive, and life becomes not worth living without that kind of ‘love’. It is this ‘love’ that has led to many crisis which we as humanity find ourselves in today, because essentially it is selfish, and destructive. The world has gone crazy with it, and until one by one we wake up from this addiction, we will never know how much more to life there is, and in fact what ‘love’ in its greater unconditional sense really means.

Romantic Love

This kind of love we are most familiar with because we have been nurtured on it through songs and the media in general. It is also a kind of addiction/obssession that can drive one to do haram acts. This is the nature of any addiction after all!

It is a desire that eminates from our lower desires and so is therefore rooted in the nafs an-ammarah bi`s-su (the self-comanding soul) (12: 53), which is dominated by the earthly senses and thus selfish. Romantic love is never happy unless it is being attended to by the object of that love, and is jealous when the person ‘loved’ has his attention elsewhere. This attention might be work, friends, family or another.

Recent studies in neuroscience, support the precautions called upon in Islam. Helen Fisher’s team at Rutgers University scanned the brains of couples who were newly in love while they gazed at photo’s of their sweethearts. Activity soars in the brain’s reward system. That result, Fisher says, in “fierce energy, concentrated motivation to attain a reward, and feelings of elation, even mania – the core feelings of romantic love”. Other areas linked with negative emotions and assessing other people’s intentions switched off. Romantic love also included activation of the hypothalamus, where the sex hormone testosterone is produced. Lust, the sexual part of love, is unsurprisingly, switched on in romantic love. – Scientific America

So, given the above results, if one becomes so engrossed with the person ‘loved’, one is unaware other people’s intentions, including the one who is ‘loved’. This where much emotional damage can be done to either party, especially when individuals become prey to the feelings of ‘romantic love’ which lead to pre-marital relationships. If the relationship moves towards marriage, the doors of reality flies open and there might be not so pleasant surprises. One of those surprises is boredom with each other, because the relationship was not based on anything more than emotions.

Islamic scholar and philosopher abu Hamid al-Ghazali (may Allah be pleased with him) wrote any man whose daughter had many suitors asked Prophet Muhammed on how he should decide. Prophet Muhammed said: “To the one who fears God; because if he loves her, he will be kind to her, and if he hates her, he will not wrong her” and “Whoever gives his daughter in marriage to a licentious man has betrayed her womb”.

We underestimate the level of bio-chemical reactions that are taking place in our bodies when it come to emotion, but mostly, it does not even occur to us that it is anything other than emotions, but even thought as a bio-chemical base. The point of this is, we should realize that when we allow a certain negative emotion to occur, that we not necessarily in full control of ourselves ones the hormones react to those emotions.

Neuroscience has found that:

Higher levels of testosterone and estrogen are present when one feels lust.Levels of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin increase when attracted…

Unconditional Love

{“And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own kind, so that you might incline towards them, and He engenders love and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed for people who think!”} Ar-Rum 30:21).

The Qur`an does not merely speak of a physical intimacy, but most importantly, emotional intimacy which is an essential ingredient in unconditional love. It is a process of getting to know the other person as he is (not as you want him to be), to share in duties and responsibilities and to always be there as a friend. This is more important than any physical intimacy because it is the basis, of intimacy and the key to a bonding relationship that provides a buoyancy through the difficult times. It is a process of building trust, the kind of trust whereby the couple can get to know each other’s weaknesses and strengths without taking advantage or wanting to. The husband is an open book to the wife and vice versa with both respecting and sharing in each other’s needs, aspirations, time. There is:

• Mutual trust
• Tenderness
• Acceptance is unconditional approval in a relationship. No one is perfect.
• Open communication is the ability to discuss anything with one’s spouse.
• Caring is genuine concern for one’s  spouse well-being. If one does things knowing it hurts one’s spouse, one  cannot have a healthy intimacy.

Apologies are the remedy for mistakes that spouses inevitably make. Recognizing mistakes, taking responsibility for them, expressing remorse for any hurt caused, and making a commitment to change the hurtful behavior are all essential to mending the relationship after a mistake. Forgiveness is the process of letting go of anger, desire for revenge, and obsessive thinking about times your spouse has hurt you. It includes giving your spouse permission to have weaknesses, make mistakes, and change.

Appropriate boundaries are the limits you place on a relationship. The limits can be created individually or as a couple. These limits include saying “no” when your spouse asks you to do something that goes against your values or is more than you can handle.

Friendship is the ingredient that lines a loving relationship. True friendship means that you will be there for one another and is the boat that takes you through rough times.

Neuroscience has found that the hormone Oxcytocin also boosts trust, which is an important step in developing a loving relationship…

Oxcytocin and vasopressin levels are higher in marriage = long term relationships signaled by the deep level of trust and bonding between spouses.
Spiritual Love

Loving for the sake of Allah takes a good healthy marriage even further, because there is a love greater than the both of you and includes family, relatives, friends and all creation. This is what unites humanity in our Creator and as a married couple pray and worship together, it adds an unbreakable dimension the marital relationship. In Islam this is referred to as tawhid, where there is a self-respect, modesty and remiss of arrogance or pride. Loving for the sake of Allah means loving others (including ones spouse) regardless of their flaws. When this aspect is strong within a marital relationship, physical intimacy becomes less important. Jealousy and possessiveness dwindles because the level of emotional bonding is so great.

Sheikh Muhammad Maulad tells us:

“The actual physical heart in our breast beats at about 100,000 times a day, pumping two gallons of blood per minute, 100 gallons per hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for an entire life time! The vascular system that sends this life-giving blood is over 60,000 miles long: it is more than two times the circumference of the earth. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the heart starts beating before the brain is formed; the heart begins to beat without any central nervous system. The dominant theory was that the central nervous system is what is controlling the entire human being from the brain, yet we know now that in fact the nervous system does not initiate the heartbeat. It is actually self-initiated; we would say, it is initiated by Allah subhanahu wa T’ala”.

Spiritually one enhances each other’s growth.  With this level of connection, the strong bond between a couple will extend to the family, relatives, neighbors and in turn heal society as a whole.

“When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. Marriage is recognition of a spiritual identity. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.” – Joseph John Campbell

Valentine’s Day!

Every February, as we know, (at least in the USA,) we are  bombarded with the message that we are to be in exclusive love affairs,  celebrating our romantic others, and being celebrated by them as well, for  being the “sun, the moon, the stars, and fireworks of excitement in each  others” lives. And yet, many people find themselves instead not in exclusive,  romantic love relationships, but rather alone and lonely. Or, if there is an  exclusive other, often the fireworks of romance that they once shared have now  deteriorated into those that come from lobbing emotional bombs at each other in  frustration, and anger, or worse, the fireworks have just plain fizzled out,  leaving people feeling disappointed and wondering what went wrong.

In other words, in spite of Hallmarks’ best attempts to  convince us otherwise, this holiday and all it conveys just isn’t happening the  way in which we are sold, and leaves so many people feeling as though their  unloved feeling is due to the fact that they are just plain unlovable in some  way.

And the truth is, this sense of loneliness, shame, failure,  frustration, and disappointment will never go fully away as long as we continue  to seek evidence of our value and lovability in the longing eyes of admiring others  instead of feeling it deep within for ourselves first. Then, and really only  then, can Valentines Day be a day we can genuinely celebrate in confidence. More importantly, when we honestly have  great love for ourselves, fully and unconditionally, we don’t have to wait for  Valentine’s Day to come around to celebrate it. – Sonia Choquette

Reference

Association for Psychological Science (2011, May 18). Want lasting love? It’s not more commitment, but equal commitment that matters. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 22, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/05/110518131435.htm

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