“…O you who believe, whoever among you turns back from his religion, Allah will soon bring forth a people whom He loves and who love Him: humble toward the believers, stern toward the disbelievers, striving in the path of Allah and fearing the reproach of no critic.” ⦗al-Māʾidah 5:54⦘

Love, then, necessarily entails jihād, for the lover loves what his Beloved loves and detests what His Beloved detests. He shows loyalty to those to whom his Beloved shows loyalty and enmity to those to whom He shows enmity; he is pleased with what pleases Him and angered by what angers Him; he commands what He commands and forbids what He forbids. In all this he is in full accord with Him. Such are the people whose pleasure brings the Lord’s pleasure and whose anger stirs His anger, because they are pleased only for His sake and angered only for what angers Him.

The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—once said to Abū Bakr about a group that included Suhayb and Bilāl, “Perhaps you have angered them; and if you have angered them, you have certainly angered your Lord.” Abū Bakr therefore asked them, “My brothers, have I angered you?” They replied, “No—may Allah forgive you, Abū Bakr.” A short while earlier Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb had passed by them and they had remarked, “The swords have not yet taken their full due.” Abū Bakr objected, “Do you say that about the chief of Quraysh?” He then related the incident to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—who told him the above words, explaining that those Companions had spoken out of anger for Allah’s sake, owing to the perfection of their loyalty to Allah and His Messenger and their enmity toward their enemies.

For this reason the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said in the sound ḥadīth, transmitted from his Lord: “My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works until I love him. When I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks—through Me he hears, through Me he sees, through Me he grasps, and through Me he walks. Were he to ask Me, I would surely give him; and were he to seek refuge in Me, I would surely grant him refuge. I have never hesitated over anything I intend to do as I hesitate to take the soul of My believing servant: he dislikes death and I dislike displeasing him, yet it is inevitable for him.”

Here He explains that He “hesitates” because hesitation arises when two wills stand in contrast. He, glorified is He, loves what His servant loves and dislikes what he dislikes; since the servant dislikes death, He therefore dislikes it for him—as He said, “and I dislike displeasing him.” Yet He, exalted is He, has decreed death and therefore wills that he die, and He called this “hesitation,” while making it clear that death must still occur.

This is a unity in what is loved and approved—what is commanded—and in what is hated and detested—what is forbidden. It may be called a “unity of kind and attribute,” but it is not a unity of the two essences, for such a thing is impossible, and whoever claims it is a disbeliever. That is the doctrine of the Christians, the extremists among the Rāfiḍites, and certain ascetics such as the Ḥallājiyya and their ilk; it is a restricted, specific form of union.

As for the absolute union espoused by the adherents of waḥdat al-wujūd, who claim that the existence of the created is identical to the existence of the Creator, this is a denial of the Maker and a rejection of Him, encompassing every variety of idolatry.

Just as union is of two kinds, so too is indwelling (ḥulūl) of two kinds. Some assert a restricted indwelling in particular individuals, while others maintain His indwelling in everything; these are the Jahmiyya, who say that the essence of Allah is in every place.

It can also happen to certain overwhelmed devotees who experience annihilation in love that they become absent from themselves in their Beloved.