of privation. When he then becomes loving, the subject has changed and has acquired an additional positive, existential attribute(1) that he did not possess before love arose within him. He is conscious of this(2) in himself [ق 44]; he senses it exactly as he senses his appetite and aversion, his contentment and anger, his pleasure and his pain.

The proof for this is that you say: “aḥabba, yuḥibbu, maḥabbatan” (he loved, he loves, love), and the opposite of “aḥabba” is “lam yuḥibb” (he did not love). “Lam yuḥibb” designates a privative attribute, and the contrary of privation is affirmation.

Ibn al-Murraḥḥil objected: “This is refuted by their statement ‘imtanaʿa, yamtaniʿu’ (it was impossible, it is impossible), for the opposite of impossibility is ‘lā imtināʿ’ (no impossibility), while impossibility itself is a privative attribute.”(3)

Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn replied, “Impossibility is a conceptual judgement of the mind, for the impossible has no external existence(4) in which an attribute could inhere. It is known only by the intellect; and insofar as it is known,(5) it enjoys cognitive affirmation. The removal of that cognitive affirmation is merely the absence of such affirmation, so this does not invalidate our statement that the contrary of privation is affirmation.

“As for love, it is an attribute that subsists in the lover himself. You can point to an external entity and say, ‘This living being has become loving after previously not being loving,’ thereby describing external reality with an attribute.(6) Accordingly, when the opposite of that attribute is an external absence, love itself must be an external, existential reality.(7)”