is the Friend of Allah—meaning himself. In another wording he declared, “I disclaim the intimate friendship of every intimate friend; and if I were to take anyone from the people of the earth as an intimate friend, I would take Abū Bakr as such.” Yet another narration states, “Allah has taken me as an intimate friend just as He took Abraham as an intimate friend.”
In this way the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) made it plain that it is unfitting for him to take any created being as a khalīl; were that admissible, none would merit it more than Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (may Allah be pleased with him). Still, he did attribute ordinary love to himself. He said to Muʿādh, “By Allah, I love you,” and he spoke similarly to the Helpers. Zayd ibn Ḥārithah was known as “the beloved of the Messenger of Allah,” and so too was his son Usāmah. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ once asked, “Who among people is dearest to you?” He answered, “ʿĀʾishah.” “And from among the men?” “Her father,” he replied. He said to Fāṭimah (may Allah be pleased with her), “Do you not love what I love?” When she said yes, he told her, “Then love ʿĀʾishah.” He prayed for al-Ḥasan, “O Allah, I love him, so love him and love whoever loves him.” Reports of this nature are numerous, all attesting that he affirmed love for particular persons. Yet he also said, “I disclaim the intimate friendship of every intimate friend; and if I were to take anyone from the people of the earth as an intimate friend, I would take Abū Bakr as such.”
It is therefore clear that khullah—intimate friendship—is more exclusive than general love. It is the perfection of love, so thoroughly infused with it that the beloved is loved for his very essence, not for anything else; when something is loved on account of something beyond it, that love is secondary to the other object. By its perfection khullah admits neither partnership nor rivalry, for love has permeated completely. Within it lies the perfection of tawḥīd and of love; it bars competition and precedence being given to another, so that the beloved is loved for his own sake and no one contends with him therein. Such a love is fit only for Allah; none may share with Him what is His sole right, for He alone is loved for His essence. Whatever else is rightly loved is loved only for His sake; whatever is loved for some other purpose is a futile love of this world—and the world is accursed, accursed is all it contains except what is for Allah Most High.
If this is the nature of khullah, it follows that whoever denies that Allah is loved for His own essence has denied that He can be taken as an intimate friend. Likewise, whoever denies that He loves any of His servants has denied that He takes anyone as a khalīl in the sense that the Lord loves and is loved by the servant with the fullest love suitable to worship. For the same reason they denied that He spoke to Moses, because they deny that any attribute or act can subsist in Him. Just as they reject His possessing life, power, or knowledge, or that He rises over (the Throne) or that He comes, so too they deny that He speaks or addresses. This is, in truth, the purport of their statement—“The Cow!”—those before them said something similar; their hearts are alike.
Yet, because Islam was manifest and the Quran was recited aloud—so that no one who professed Islam could openly repudiate it—they resorted to deviating in the Names of Allah and to distorting words from their proper places. They reinterpreted the servants’ love for Him as nothing more than their love of obeying Him and drawing nearer to Him. This is a tremendous ignorance, for the love of the one seeking nearness for the One to whom he seeks nearness