Abu Hamid al Ghazali concludes his book Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment with a compilation of sayings about love from various Sufi sources. Below are just a few of these. For more about al Ghazali, see this earlier post.
Junayd said, “God has proscribed love for anyone who has attachments.” He also said, “Every love that is based on some reciprocal benefit vanishes when the benefit does.”
Rabia al Adawiya said one day, “Who will guide us to our lover?” Her maid-servant responded, “Our lover is already with us but the world has severed us from Him.”
Ibn al Jalla (may God show him mercy) said, “God revealed to Jesus (peace be upon him), ‘When I search out a man’s innermost heart and find no love either for this world or the next, I fill him full of love for Me, and shelter him with My protection.'”
Rabia was asked how it stood with her love for the Messenger* (may God bless him and grant him peace) and she answered, “By God, I love him fiercely and yet, love for the Creator possesses me to the exclusion of love for created things.”
Moses (peace be upon him) was asked what the best deed might be and he replied, “Contentment with God and love for Him.” Abu Yazid said, “The lover loves neither this world nor the next. Of his master he loves only his Master.”
It has been said that lover means that you wipe away every trace of yourself until nothing remains within you that might refer back to yourself. Also: “Love is the heart’s nearness to the beloved through happiness and joy.”
God inspired David (peace be upon him) by saying, “If those who turn from Me knew how I wait for them and how tenderly I treat them and how I long for them to desist from their sins, they would die out of sheer longing for me and their limbs would be hacked into pieces for love of Me. O David, this is My will for those who turn away from Me. How then would My love be for those who come toward Me? O David, man needs Me most when he thinks to dispense with Me. I am most compassionate of my servant when he turns from Me but man is most sublime when he comes back to Me.”
*=the prophet Mohammed
Tr. Eric Ormsby