for the delight of gazing upon Your Face and the longing to meet You, without [ʿ, M read: “in the absence of”] harmful adversity or a misleading trial.” (1)
As for those who affirmed that He is loved, and that what is meant (2) by His love for others is His will, they assumed that He loves everything He has created. Such people may go so far as embracing doctrines of antinomianism (3), saying that He loves disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience [and is pleased with them] (4), and that when the knower witnesses this station (5), he regards no good deed as good and no evil deed as evil, because he witnesses His universal sustaining power and the Lord’s creation of all things. A group [of mistaken shaykhs] (6) from among the Sufi shaykhs and speculative thinkers (7) have fallen into this. It is a grave error.
The Book, the Sunnah, and [the consensus of] the early generations (8) of the Muslim community make clear that Allah loves His prophets
(1) This is part of two lengthy hadiths. The first is narrated from ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, may Allah be pleased with him, in *Sunan al-Nasāʾī*, 3:46–47, Book of Forgetfulness, chapter “A Form of Supplication after the Remembrance.” It begins: “O Allah, by Your knowledge of the unseen and Your power over creation…” It is also found in *al-Musnad*, al-Ḥalabī edition, 4:264. The second hadith conveys the same meaning with different wording and is narrated from Zayd ibn Thābit, may Allah be pleased with him, in *al-Musnad*, al-Ḥalabī edition, 5:191.
(2) (N) and (M) read: “means.”
(3) (N) and (M) read: “antinomian.”
(4) “And is pleased with that” is omitted from (N) and (M).
(5) (N) and (M) read: “before the judge”; (ʿ) reads: “this judgment”; and (A) reads: “this judge.” The reading adopted from (B) is correct.
(6) The text within square brackets is omitted from (N) and (M).
(7) (N), (M), and (ʿ) read: “and speculative thought.”
(8) (A) and (B) read: “and the early generations.”