3 Reasons for Falling in Love | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed | Shamail - Session 1

Three Reasons for Falling in Love — Shamā'il Session 1

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the most honored of the messengers, our master Muhammad, the Prophet of the worlds, whose name is written in the Gospels and the Torah.

Allah, the Almighty, said in His Noble Book — I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:

"Say: If you love Allah, follow me. Allah loves you and forgives you your sins. Allah is Forgiving and Merciful."

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

"None of you truly believes until I am more beloved to him than his child, his father, and all of mankind." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 15; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 44)

The Three Reasons We Fall in Love

Imam Ghazali, rahimahullah, when speaking about the component of love and the concept of love, he says that a person falls in love with someone or something because of three reasons. If someone has these three reasons — or something has these three elements present within it — it is far easier for a person to fall in love with it or that person.

He says that the general, just the surface-level reasons why a person can fall in love are:

Reason 1: Physical Beauty

Physical beauty is not only for people. It could be for a house. So when you go look at a house that you're looking to purchase, you need it to look nice. You're not going to buy fruits that look like they're rotten from the outside and say, "Well, they may be beautiful from the inside." If you go buy fruits or vegetables and they don't look right from the outside, you won't try to justify purchasing it because it looks good from the inside. So the exterior of a believer does make a difference. And the beauty of a believer will be found in the same way that the beauty of the Prophet ﷺ was found — of course it was physical, but it was also a component of his sunnah that made him beautiful. It was also the presence of certain aspects of his life that made him more beautiful.

Reason 2: Internal Beauty

Because a person can be physically beautiful, but internally that person can be absolutely dead. They can be horrible people. A car, for the sake of example, from the outside can have the best paint job, the best rims — it looks really nice, it's a clean car. And then you're ready to buy it, but there's no engine. What are you going to do with that type of car? Similarly, there are people — may Allah protect us from being amongst them — this was a quality of the munāfiqīn, that they would have every exterior element of beauty.

What Allah says about these people: that if you were to see them, you would be in awe of their figure, of their presence, of the demand that they have within the room — that when they walk in, everyone looks towards them, that they have such a strong presence. What the Prophet of Allah ﷺ said about these people is that there will be a time that these same individuals will read the Qur'an in the most melodious of tones, but it won't even come down their own throat — i.e., it won't impact their hearts.

The benefit of speaking about Allah, or listening to talks about Allah, or speaking about the Prophet, or listening to talks about the Prophet, wasn't merely for passing time. It was for the sake of that seed being planted in their heart, and that seed then growing. What Imam Ghazali says is that love is like a seed — hence it comes from the same root letters of ḥabb and ḥabba, which is a seed. Similarly, love is a seed. And he says that just like how a seed is planted, love is planted within the heart. And just like how a seed will go dead if not watered, the love of that person will go pale if it is not watered correctly.

And then he says that the way that the seed of the love of the Prophet is watered is by: (A) sending durood upon the Prophet, (B) learning about the Prophet, and (C) having present measurables of sunnah that are added to our life.

Because what is to be said about a person who claims the ultimate love, but has absolutely no aspiration to embody it, has absolutely no intention to cultivate it? Not saying that they don't do it, because that's in the hands of Allah. But at minimum the intention to embody it. At minimum a game plan of how to create more sunnahs in our life. How to create a physical process of adding the Prophet's sunnah within our life and presence.

I don't care if someone says that was culturally done, or that was done for the sake of this or that. What was a sunnah is what the Prophet said, did, or liked. Now why he did it is a conversation for a different day. What was the wisdom behind it is a conversation for a separate class. But the definition of sunnah was something that he approved of. Something that brought a smile to his face. Something that he himself did. The what and how is what we will be asked about. Why he did it is a different discussion.

So a person can look very beautiful from the outside, but be completely dead from the inside. The personality of a person can dictate their beauty. Someone can look a certain way, but at the first conversation with them you're like — man, I ain't interacting with that person again. Because our personalities are so different, or so off.

Reason 3: How Much Love We Receive Back

The third reason why we love in this world is because of — or due to — how much love we receive back from that person. Our love increases because of how much that other person loves us. This is a natural reaction of love.

Why did these sahabas love the Prophet ﷺ more than anything or anyone else? As Shaykh Abdullah was mentioning earlier today, the Prophet ﷺ said: you will not be a true believer until you love me more than you love your families, your children, and even yourself. And Umar رضي الله عنه said, "Well, that's a stretch." But then a few moments later he accepted the fact that he loved the Prophet ﷺ more than himself.

Why is that so special? How does that happen? How can a person become the most beloved to people in a split second? That moments before, they were trying to figure out a way to kill this man, and a few moments later, nothing has changed about the man — and now those same people are ready to be killed for that person. The same people are looking for ways and strategies to bring pain to this man, and moments later they're looking for strategies to protect this man. What changed?

It wasn't that the person changed. It wasn't that somehow they received waḥī themselves. The only thing that changed for them is they also experienced the amount of love the Prophet ﷺ had for them. That he loved them so much, that it was the only option to love him back. It was like how they say, every action has a reaction, every cause has an effect. The effect of the Prophet's love in their life was that they loved him back.

Why Are We the Greatest Ummah?

Similarly, the impact and the effect of the Prophet's love is still present within us, within our ummah. Because why else in the world should our ummah be the greatest ummah? We're not stronger than the previous ummahs.

The people of 'Ād and the people of Thamūd — these were like specimens of creation. They could pluck trees. They could carve mountains. We can hardly draw; we have PowerPoints now. We don't live the longest, because lifespan doesn't make a difference. Nūh عليه السلام did da'wah for 950 years — can you imagine how long his nation lived? We're not the most intelligent. The nation of Shu'ayb عليه السلام were geniuses when it came to business and trade. We don't have all of the talents. So what makes us such that Allah has said that you are the greatest ummah?

"You are the best nation brought forth for mankind."

We are the greatest nation — to the extent that even prophets, when they would be informed about the nation of Muhammad ﷺ, would actually say to Allah: "Oh Allah, allow us to be a part of that nation." Musa عليه السلام says, under the tafsīr of the āyah:

"O my Lord, I find in the tablets a nation — if one of them intends to do a good deed but does not carry it out, it is still written as one good deed for him. Make them my nation." (Referenced in Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6491; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 131)

Oh Allah, I see that in the scriptures there is a nation that will come at the end of time, and this will be such a unique nation — that even if they intend to do an act of goodness, though they don't do it, they will still get the reward of that act. Make them my ummah. And Allah replies by saying: No, هُمْ أُمَّةُ أَحْمَدَ — this is the nation of Aḥmad.

Oh Allah, I see that there is a nation that is to come — they will be the last nation to come in regards to the sequence and timeline of nations, but they will be the first to enter Jannah, and they will be the first to be given ḥisāb. Make them my ummah. And so Musa عليه السلام says:

At least make me someone that can be a part of that nation, so I can also reap the benefits of being called the ummah of Muhammad ﷺ.

What makes us special is that we were given the love of our prophet. We love based upon how much love we receive back. Why do parents love their children? Because children bring love into their lives. If the child doesn't bring love into their lives, the parent's love is compromised. All of our love is reciprocal. The only love in this world that is not reciprocal is the love that Allah has for you and I. Every other love in this world is based upon things — it's reciprocal. Today we receive less, tomorrow we will give less. Today we receive more, tomorrow we will give more.

This is the weakness of a human. We're made from the component of uns. Our name is called insān because it is derived from the root letters of uns. We require compassion to survive. The greatest punishment that a person can be given in this world is solitary confinement, because they're stripped away from their most natural demand of their body and soul — which is to be loved. Which is to be surrounded by people who love them. Why do individuals go into certain aspects of depression and isolation? And it's not because they're physically isolated. It's because they don't feel loved. And the prophet was able to take such people and through his ability and his love for them, change the value that they brought to the world.

Islam and Sunnah Add Value, Not Burden

People think that when Islam or Sunnah comes into my life, it depreciates the value that I have for the world. No! When Islam and Sunnah comes into our life it only adds value.

Umar رضي الله عنه, before becoming Muslim, did not aspire to become the leader of the world. Had no aspirations to become the person that he became. Rather, when his aunt had asked him, "Oh Umar, do you remember there was a time when I asked you what do you want to become? And you said that all I want is my own herd of sheep, so I can be an owner and a shepherd. That was your greatest ambition. And today Allah has made you the ruler of one third of the world."

Islam and Sunnah adds value. The moment we realize that something adds value to our life, we stop looking at it as a burden and start looking at it as a blessing. The moment we realize that education is a source of privilege and honor — if I don't study, then I don't get a job; if I don't study, people don't think of me as someone of honor; if I don't study, I can't support a family — then when we go for education, we take it as a blessing, not a burden. Similarly, when a person sees wealth as a blessing, that individual will always work towards earning more.

When a person looks at Sunnah and the presence of Sunnah in their life as a burden, it will be very difficult for them to add more. "How can I add more Sunnah into my home? If I add more Sunnah, it will be a burden for my family. It will be a burden for my guests. It will be a burden for my neighbors." No. Adding Sunnah into our family becomes a source of blessing. And everything will be a trickle effect of those blessings.

What Are the Shamā'il?

There are three reasons why we love. The first is physical beauty. The second is internal beauty. The third is how much that person loves us. Today, we're supposed to speak about just the first.

Shamā'il — the topic of Shamā'il — comes from the root letters of shamal or shamlah, which means internal characteristics. Not habits. Not habits that a person was able to cultivate, but rather qualities that are synonymous with that person's existence. That you cannot separate those two things from that individual. The quality is innate in the person himself or herself. So there are certain qualities that the Prophet ﷺ had innately within him — that regardless of sunshine or rain, these were things you could bank on. He would have these qualities.

So what were the Prophet's shamā'il — the qualities that were naturally embedded within him? One was his physical beauty. That he was the most beautiful person that Allah had created, and people would just be attracted to Islam because of his beauty. Ibn Ḥajar says more than 33 people became Muslim just by the beauty of the Prophet ﷺ — just by seeing him. Amongst them was a story that Shaykh Abdullah shared, of Salmān al-Fārisī رضي الله عنه. Amongst them were the stories of Ṭufayl ibn 'Amr al-Dawsī رضي الله عنه — where they just saw the Prophet and they fell in love with the Prophet ﷺ.

The Prophet's Arrival in Madina

When the Prophet ﷺ entered into Madina — he entered Madīnat ul-Munawwara, which was a city known as Yathrib, which means sickness. Yathrib means like a plague; it means sickness, disease. The Prophet came into the city called Yathrib, and it was renamed Madīnat ul-Munawwara — the name changed to Madīnat ul-Ṭayyiba. That city which was the cause of sickness now became the cause of purity. What changed the city? The presence of the Prophet ﷺ.

That same home, which can be the cause of headache and anxiety, can become a home which is the cause of peace and love. That same job, which is the cause of headache and difficulty, can be the cause of peace, honor, and a sense of contentment. It is not the thing that creates the effect — it's how it's done that creates the effect.

The home is just a structure. A home is not munawwara because it has beautiful lights. Madīnat ul-Munawwara was not called Madīnat ul-Munawwara because it had lights. Munawwara means illuminated. It wasn't called Munawwara because there were beautiful lights all around the city — for seven years, there was no light in the Prophet's masjid, let alone the city, until the sahabah of the Prophet ﷺ brought a light and a lamp to the masjid. It wasn't Munawwara because there was a beautiful landscape or beautiful architecture. It was known as Yathrib.

Makkah al-Mukarrama was not a city which was mukarram because of its geography. In today's time, when people speak about sociology, they say cities are built upon good economies, good opportunities, good economic structure, good landscape. But we've seen within our tradition that cities are built upon strong people. Cities are built upon families who are ready to sacrifice for the right purpose, which is the purpose of deen. Cities were built upon people who are ready to say that there is nothing that matters to me more than submitting to the command of Allah.

Makkah al-Mukarrama was built on the back of a family. It wasn't a city that had economic structure, economic opportunity, great landscapes, great architecture —

"Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in an uncultivated valley near Your sacred House."

It was a city that did not even have the signs of life, signs of water — it was the Mars of its time. But because the people that were there, the family of Ibrāhīm عليه السلام, recognized that the city will be built upon the submission to Allah. Similarly, Madīnat ul-Munawwara became munawwara because of the Prophet's presence. Our home becomes munawwar not because of its furniture, but because of the presence of the Prophet's sunnah.

Ḥassān ibn Thābit and the Prophet's Beauty

So Ḥassān ibn Thābit رضي الله عنه — I'll share one poem and one narration about his beauty ﷺ and then we'll call it a night.

The Jews of Madina came to Ḥassān ibn Thābit — at this time he was not yet a Muslim; he was Jewish, and later on he became the poet of the Prophet ﷺ. They said, "This man has come to Madina and he's taking over. We thought he was only going to come and become the political leader. He's also become the religious authority. We didn't expect that. And now everyone is swarming him for answers and solutions while we were the people that were able to provide religious context." So they said to Ḥassān: we want you to stand at the bottom of the hill, and when this man walks down with his companions and his entourage, prepare a couplet that when you say it, everyone and everything that hears it will lose respect of this man.

It was an attempt to remove the respect of the Prophet ﷺ — which is impossible. You cannot remove the honor of something that was given to him by Allah. That honor came from Allah.

Whosoever Allah honors, no one can dishonor. Whosoever Allah provides, no one can take away from that person.

Allah says: when I open something up for someone, no one in the world can turn it away. And when I close the door for someone, there's no one that can open that door.

So Ḥassān is standing at the bottom of the hill with this couplet in his mind that he can use to dishonor the Prophet ﷺ — he has this rap battle ready, right? This man's gonna walk down, I'm gonna take care of him. And as the Prophet walks down, he changes up. And instead he says:

He says: Lammā ra'aytu anwārahū saṭa'at — the moment my eyes saw the beauty of this man, the moment the rays of the Prophet's face fell upon my eyes. Waḍa'tu min khīfatin kaffī 'alā baṣarī — I took my palm and I covered my eyes. Khawfan 'alā baṣarī min ḥusni ṣūratih — out of fear that if I were to look at this person for any longer, perhaps Allah would snatch my eyesight away.

This is why Ibn Mālik رضي الله عنه would say that when we would sit in front of the Prophet ﷺ, we would have two conflicting thoughts: one was to look up and enjoy the sight of the Prophet ﷺ, and the other was to look down out of the awe and honor of the Prophet ﷺ. So he would say: whenever the Prophet ﷺ would look away from us, he would look towards him. Whenever he would look towards them, out of honor and awe, they would look down.

"I just covered my eyes because he was too beautiful." It was in that moment that Ḥassān ibn Thābit also became a Muslim.

The Story of Umm Ma'bad

Umm Ma'bad رضي الله عنها narrates a narration where she met the Prophet ﷺ during the journey of hijrah. Shaykh Abdullah was speaking about hijrah and he may even touch upon this narration. The Prophet ﷺ stopped at their home — their tent — and asked them: is there anything that you can give us? Because we're on this long journey and we haven't had anything to eat and we're struggling. It was natural for people to just have good hospitality.

Here we go — whatever is ours is yours. In today's time we have small homes, so we say we can't invite people because the homes are too small. And when the homes become big, we can't invite people because people will put naẓar and 'ayn in our house. When the homes are small we can't invite, when the homes are big we can't invite. When we have no children we can't invite, when we have children we cannot invite. So it's probably a bigger issue than that.

Nonetheless, when he comes and asks her for any type of support, she says: "I don't have anything." He said: "Well, you must have something." She said: "Well, all I have is this animal that is in the back of my tent, and it really can't give you anything — there's no meat, there's no milk. It's extremely frail and old and it's very weak and feeble. However, if you want, knock yourself out." The Prophet ﷺ goes and — of course with the blessings and miracles of Allah — touches this animal and it's filled up. And then they milk the animal, the Prophet ﷺ drinks and the family drinks.

I'm fast-forwarding the story because we can't delay Maghrib. We can't do that — that's like, I'm learning Seerah and we delay Maghrib. Nonetheless, later on in that day the husband comes home and they have this conversation. "How was your day?" And back in the days spouses would have these conversations, right? So she said: "Well, today I saw something very strange. I can't even explain to you what I saw, what I felt." This was the impact of a few moments around the Prophet's presence. Imagine the impact of 23 years around the Prophet ﷺ — hence these people fell in love with him.

The Light of the Sunnah

Imagine the impact of being around people who have the Prophet ﷺ alive in their lives. The reason that we are attracted to individuals — if we have purity within ourselves — is because they embody something of the Prophet ﷺ. They embody a presence of the Prophet ﷺ. So we are attracted towards it because it's naturally very beautiful. You don't have to do much to make a beautiful car look nice — it already looks nice. You have to do a lot to make a Civic look nice. You don't have to do anything to make the Prophet's sunnah look beautiful. It will make our life become beautiful. We don't have to tamper with it, change it, reinvent the wheel, compromise processes of how to implement it. It enters our life — it makes us beautiful. It enters our life — it makes our home beautiful, because it's naturally very beautiful.

It's like light. The moment it turns on, all the darkness of the room leaves. The beauty of light is that if this entire room was dark and there was one crevice or one window that light was entering through, that light would be enough to remove or discard the darkness of the room. Just a little bit of light is enough. But if this entire room was full of light as it is right now, and there were different crevices and different windows and different areas where darkness was coming in from — it would not destroy the light. It would not remove the light, because light is powerful.

Similarly, we don't need to have the Prophet's entire sunnah alive in our life to be able to remove the darkness of the world. "Since you can't do all of it, what's the point of doing half of it?" — that is a satanic whisper. Just the same way that light, even if it comes through a small crevice, is strong enough to dispel the darkness of a person's room — a portion of the Prophet's sunnah is powerful enough to remove our anxieties, to remove our darknesses, to remove our insecurities. The blueprint has already been set. When you know there's a blueprint that works, we don't reinvent the wheel — we just learn how to copy and paste. It works.

What changed the sahabas from being people that no one wanted to rule, to becoming people that ruled the world, was nothing other than the presence of the Prophet's sunnah. And the same would work today. The components of love and purity are the same today.

The Danger of Adapting to Darkness

However, if a person stays in a dark room — and I'll end with this, I promise — in a dark room, the most mundane and simple acts become very difficult. In a dark room, you do it every day: turn on the light. But now since the room is dark, what's happening? You're bumping into the side of your bed. Everyone's experienced that before — your toe hits the bed, you slip on something, you hit your elbow on the side of the closet. It's such an easy task, just turn the light on. Or grab the water bottle. How does it become so difficult for such an easy task? Even when someone gets hurt, you ask them how they got hurt and they don't want to tell you — it's most probably because they hurt themselves doing something very simple. But it's because the light was off. Simple things became very difficult.

Similarly, when we disassociate our lives from the light that is innately found with the Prophet's sunnah, simple movements become very difficult. Simple decisions become very challenging. Because we are trying to make those decisions without the prism of light that we absolutely are in need of.

Now what happens to a person that stays in that dark room for long enough? Their eyes adapt. And now they're able to see everything. You know what's so scary about this? Now that person actually thinks that they don't need light. Because their eyes have adapted and they're very comfortable moving the way they're moving. "Why should I change? Everything's working for me. Why should I think about praying salah on top? Everything's working. Barakah is coming. Why should I change the way that I raise my children? Look at them — look at how they're being raised. Are they not well-mannered? Are they not doing well in school?" Because the eyes adjust in darkness the same way the heart adjusts in darkness. Now the heart actually believes that it doesn't need the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

The moment you turn the light on in that room, the person is initially blinded. It takes a minute for him to adapt to the light. But when the light comes back on, he realizes: "Oh my — I was doing that the whole time and it took me so much more time, so much more effort. How inefficient was that?" We gain success by efficiency. It's not about did you get the tasks done — it's about how long did it take you to get the tasks done.

Now when we are introduced to the Prophet's sunnah and the Prophet's light, sometimes it may be overwhelming — "Oh my God, how am I supposed to take this all in?" — and we ease our way in. And then we'll see that we will understand and identify what we were missing the entire time.

A Closing Reminder — Information vs. Transformation

Since all of us have pure hearts — why else would we be here? We're not here because we chose to be here. We're here because Allah chose us to be here. We're not here because we planned our break. We're here because Allah chose us to be in such an environment where we can fall in love with the Prophet ﷺ.

If we leave the seerah intensive without learning anything but we are transformed — that is a success. And if we leave learning everything, can recite the slides backwards, but we have not added any sunnah into our life — that is a complete failure. Because the moments that we have over here are not simply there to bring upon ourselves more information or to accumulate more information. These are not moments for information. These are moments for transformation.

There are many sahabas who knew very little but they were ready to do everything for the Prophet ﷺ — because love has no language, as they say.

But Imam Ghazali says we love for three reasons, like I said in the beginning — and I'll conclude with that. Number one: because of how someone looks. Number two: because of their internal qualities. And number three: because of how much they loved us. In these seven days, inshallah, through the seerah, but also through the shamā'il sessions that we have at the end, we will speak about all three of these things in different layers.