ng and has the greatest perfection.3
Sadr ud‑din al‑Shirazi, known as Mulla Sadra and the founder of the school of al‑hikmah almuta'aliyah, makes the same point:
What causes love is what is received or will be received from the beloved. The higher goodness and more intensive existence the more deserving for being loved and the greater love for goodness. Now the being, which is free from potentiality and contingency, due to its ultimate goodness, has the ultimate level of being loved and the ultimate level of loving. Therefore, His love for Himself is the most perfect love and the most loyal one.4
He also adds that since God is the Simple (not compound, without any parts) and Divine attributes are not additional (or accidental) to His essence in existence (the idea which is greatly accepted by Muslim philosophers and the majority of theologians and known as the unity of His essence and His attributes), His love is identical to His essence. In this way, one can justifiably say that He is love as He is knowledge and life.
God's love for the world in general, and human beings in particular is unanimously believed and emphasised by all Muslims. Indeed, one of the God's names is al‑Wadud, He who loves. This is in addition to those names which imply His love for creatures, such as al‑Rahman and al‑Rahim meaning the all‑Compassionate, the all‑Merciful. Every chapter of the Qur'an except chapter 9 (which starts with verses about warning pagans) begins with the phrase: "In the Name of God, the all‑Compassionate, the all‑Merciful". Yet the number of repetition of this phrase in the Qur'an is equal to the number of chapters i.e. 114, since in the chapter 27 this phrase occurs twice. It is noteworthy that although one of the things attributed to God in Islam is the wrath (ghadab), its application is much more limited compared to His mercifulness and love for His creatures. Indeed, His wrath is only for those who deliberately disbelieve or commit evil actions. This is an idea that all Muslims agree and is clearly expressed in many sources. I would like here just to mention only one profound statement. In a well‑known prayer, Jushan al‑Kabir, God is addressed as the one "whose mercy has preceded His wrath".
As we will see later, this wrath or anger is also out of His love and mercy. If His love or mercy did not exist He would not care at all. It is like a father who becomes angry with his son when he does something wrong, because he has care and concern for his son and his entire family, because he wants his son to correct his behaviour and set a lesson for other children not to copy that wrong act.
God has different levels or degrees of love for His creatures. One is His general and encompassing love that includes all beings. If there were no such love nothing, would be brought into being. This love includes even wrongdoers, since they also manifest or represent some stages of goodness in their essence and this is that aspect of their being which is loved by God, though it might be overwhelmed by the demonic aspect of their characters and therefore they might be overall hated.
A higher level of Divine love is His love for true believers, those who believe in Him, the ultimate Truth and do good deeds. Those are the people "He loves and who love Him" (5:54). In the Qur'an, we find that God loves "the doers of justice" (5:42; 8:60; 9:49), "those who purify themselves" (9:108), "the pious" (3:76; 9:4 & 7), "those who do good (to others)" (5:13 & 93; 3:134 & 148; 2:195) "those who trust (Him)" (4:35) "the patient" (3:146) and "those who repent very much and purify themselves" (2:222).
It is noteworthy that in the Qur'an in many cases God's displeasure is described not by focusing on His hatred, but rather indirectly by phrases, such as "God does not love any ungrateful (or unbeliever) sinner" (2:276), "God does not love the unjust" (3:57&1140), "surely, God does not love him who is proud, boastful" (4:36) and "surely God does not love him who is treacherous, sinful" (4:107).
According to Islam, the highest level of Divine love for any crea