We have already explained that loving Allah Most High includes loving what He loves. Thus, in the two Sahīh collections, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:
“Whoever possesses three qualities will taste the sweetness of faith: that Allah and His Messenger are dearer to him than all else; that he loves another person solely for Allah’s sake; and that he detests returning to disbelief after Allah has rescued him from it just as he detests being cast into the Fire.”
The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stated that whoever possesses these three qualities will taste the sweetness of faith. This is because finding sweetness in something follows love for it. When someone loves or desires something and then obtains what he wants, he experiences sweetness, pleasure, and joy in it. Pleasure arises after perceiving what is congenial—that is, what is loved or desired.
Those who claim that pleasure is the perception of what is congenial, as some philosophers and physicians do, are clearly mistaken. Perception comes between love and pleasure. A person, for example, desires food; when he eats it, pleasure follows. Likewise, pleasure follows looking at something: when one looks at it, one experiences pleasure. Pleasure follows the act of looking; it is not the act of looking itself, nor is it the sight of the thing. Rather, it arises after seeing it. Allah Most High said:
“Therein is whatever souls desire and eyes delight in.”
Likewise, all the pleasures and pains the soul experiences—joy, sorrow, and the like—arise through awareness of what is loved or what is disliked. Yet awareness itself is not