(قُلْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ (سورة آل عمران: 31

This is an ayah we all know well. ًWe all claim to have love for Allah. However, love is a secret of the heart. It cannot be measured precisely whether a person loves something/someone a great deal or very little. Allah ta'ala tells us in this verse the real criterion of His love. If someone claims to love Him, then how much he/she follows the noble prophet (peace be upon him) is the proof for that statement. The more we love Him, the more ittiba' of His prophet we do. The opposite meaning can also be understood.

Now, we must ask ourselves how much do we love Allah and whether or not we are proving that claim with ittiba' of His messenger. Do we wake up with the masnoon du'as on our tongues? Do we brush our teeth with the siwaak, etc? Do we try to apply the sunnah to every aspect of our lives as our pious predecessors had done before us? Or is it all academic? We all know the many sunnahs there are to follow, but practically speaking, how many do we really follow consistently? Our great imam Abu Hanifa addressed his students one day saying, "this is 'ilm, so where is the 'aml?" We are more entitled to heed this advice because in our time 'ilm is so easy to come by. 'Aml, however, is ever decreasing.

The messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is reported to have said, "the most beloved of deeds to Allah are those which are consistent even if they be little." Even if we follow one sunnah a week, we are a little bit closer to Allah then the previous. In my family we read the sublime conduct of the messenger (ash-shamaail al-kubra) and try to follow it and remind each other when we forget. With this small effort we hope that Allah, out of His infinite mercy, might just look at us with His love, thus attaining the ultimate goal. May Allah give us the tawfeeq to prove our claim of love for Him by following the footsteps of his messenger (peace be upon him). Ameen ya Rabbal 'aalameen.

Lovers of Allah

Let Thy wish become my desire,
Let Thy will become my deed,
Let Thy word become my speech, Beloved,
And Thy love become my creed.
Let my plant bring forth Thy flowers,
Let my fruits produce Thy seed,
Let my heart become Thy lute, Beloved,
And my body Thy flute of reed.
from the Vadan, or Divine Symphony
by Hazrat Inayat Khan

‘O Sari, I created mankind, and all of them claimed to love Me. Then I created the world, and nine-tenths of them deserted Me, and there remained one-tenth. The I created Paradise, and nine-tenths again deserted Me, and one-tenth of the tenth remained with Me. And I imposed on them one particle of affliction, and nine-tenths of those who were left deserted Me, and I said to those who remained, ‘You did not desire the world, nor seek after Paradise, nor flee from misfortune; what then do you desire and what is it that you seek?’ They replied, ‘It is You Yourself we desire, if You do afflict us, yet we will not abandon our love and devotion to You’. And I said to them, ‘I am He Who imposes upon you affliction and terrors which even the mountains cannot abide. Will you have patience for such affliction?’ They said, ‘Yes, truthfully, if You are the One Who afflicts; do what You will with us’. These are indeed My servants and My true lovers’
(al-Hurayfish al-Rawd al-Fa`iq, p.279)

“Whoever (truly) knows his Lord loves Him, and whoever (truly) knows the world does without it.” - al-Hasan al-Basri (May Allah be pleased with him)