Without Love and Compassion, the Sharīʿah means Nothing – by Rayhan Al-Safawi

Our minds can be filled with information and all of our ritual practices may be correct, but if we do not have akhlāq (moral etiquette) namely love and compassion for others, we are spiritually bankrupt. Allah is known as the Dispenser of Compassion and Grace (raḥmān). It is on the basis of love and compassion that we will be judged on Yawm al-Qiyāmah (the Day of Judgment). By love here, I don’t necessarily mean the emotional kind, but in the Islamic sense it means wanting the good for others just like you would want it for yourself.

The Sharīʿah literally means “a way” as in the way to God. Although it is important to practice Islamic law and its rituals in their correct manners, what really fulfills the law is love of God (I will elaborate on this more soon,) and not the outward validity and correct form of the practice. This is an approach which Wahhabis and the Pharisees took and it is rejected by Islam.

When we see our Islamic practices only within the scope of ritual correctness, najāsah (ritual impurity) and tahārah (ritual purity), or even in the length of our prayers, but we do not have compassion and love for others, we will not gain any true merit (thawāb) in our actions. To be callous and uncaring to those whom we meet is an affront to God and we will stand before Him on the Day of Judgment with nothing to show. How can we claim to be worshipers of God if we turn away the needy? How can we claim to be on the “right path” if we cannot learn to forgive those who hurt us?

Going back on my earlier point, the laws we follow have little or no value if we do not have love, compassion and mercy towards God’s creation. The way we treat others is in essence the way we really feel about God. How can we be cruel to the children of the one whom we claim to love? Our compassion for others is therefore a manifestation and expression of our love for God. It is in our love of God that our mercy is dispensed to those who are in pain, who suffer physically, mentally and spiritually because of sickness and oppression whether they are Muslim or not.

When we become sincere lovers of God’s creation, human or non-human, we become God’s representatives on earth (khalīfah fī al-arḍ). Remember that the Sharīʿah is not an end in itself but it is a means through which we attain a deep relationship with God (īmān) whom is known as al-Wadūd(the All-Loving) in the Qur’an. To attain love of others is to attain love and the Sharīʿah does not make sense without it. This love is not merely a moral duty we have in this world, but it is a cosmic element of existence which links this world with the celestial and divine one (malakūt); without it, the world would come to its end for it is through love and mercy that it was created in the first place.  It is thus through compassion, mercy and ultimately love that these two worlds are bound together.

Yours Faithfully,