ture is His love for perfect human beings, such as prophets. The Prophet Muhammad has a special place in this regard. One of the wellknown titles of him is Habib Ullah, which means the beloved of God. In a famous Divine saying God addresses the Prophet, "If thou were not, I would not have created the heavens." As S.H. Nasr and many others have indicated, "Muslim saints over the centuries have seen in the love of God for the Prophet and in his love for God the prototype of all love between man and his creator". 5
Similar to what we saw earlier in the case of Divine love, human love for God, for His creation, for good deeds, and for each other plays a crucial role in the Islamic world‑view, especially in theology, mysticism and ethics. Indeed, love for the truths embodied in the religion builds up the faith. For Muslim theologians, and indeed inspired by the Qur'an, although faith is based on knowledge of the religious facts, it is not reducible to that knowledge. There might be people who have knowledge of the religious facts and are confident about them but still do not commit themselves to any faith. The faith and belief only come when a person voluntarily commits himself to acceptance of articles of faith and does not refuse to follow them. In other words, the faith is there only when one loves the religious beliefs and not just when one comes to know them. The Qur'an says:
And they denied them (Divine signs or miracles) unjustly and proudly while their soul had been certain about it. (27:14)
The prototype example of those who know very well but refuse to practice what they have known is Iblis, the great Satan. According to Islamic sources, Iblis does whatever he does out of arrogance and selfishness, not out of ignorance.
Thus, a person becomes faithful and a believer only when he has respect and love for certain facts i.e. articles of faith. We read in a famous hadith that the Prophet Muhammad asked his companions of "the firmest handhold of faith". They suggested different things like prayer and hajj. When they could not give the appropriate answer the Prophet said:
The firmest handhold of faith is to love for the sake of God and to hate for the sake of God, to befriend God's friends and to renounce His enemies.1
The same idea is emphasised by Imams of the Household of the Prophet. For example, Fudayl ibn Yasar, a disciple, asked Imam Sadiq whether love and hatred derive from faith. Imam replied: "Is faith anything but love and hate?"2 The same hadith is narrated from Imam Baqir. It is also narrated that Imam Baqir said: "The faith is love and love is the faith."3
An overall study of the Qur'an and narrations (hadiths) shows that in the Islamic view love either in its Divine form or in Human form, belongs only to the precious and valuable things as far as they are so. The result is firstly that the degrees of the love that different things deserve or receive differ according to their merits, and secondly that anything which is in conflict with those precious and valuable things or prevents their realisation should be hated. For example, if justice is to be loved injustice should be hated. Or if a person who tells the truth is to be loved a person who lies should be hated. Of course, in respect to their other characters and deeds, the situation might be different. A single person might be loved or praised for something and at the same time he might be hated or blamed for the other.
In comparison with some other faiths, one aspect of love in Islam is that it is usually considered along with `hate (of the evil) for the sake of God'. One has to love for the sake of God and hate for the sake of God. There is a tendency among some people to think that there should be no hate at all. These people assume that excellence and nobility of character and "being sociable" consist of having all men one's friends. Certainly Islam recommends Muslims to love people and optimise compassionate and sincere relationship with them, even if they do not believe in Islam or in God. However, it is not feasible for a person who has principles 