An investigation of the Concept of Love in Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani School of Thought

Abstract

In Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani’ school of thought, the presence of love is conceived of as the cause life and the absence of this divine gift is tantamount to the complete destruction of existence. In this school of thought, divine love is construed as being inherent and instinct and, contrary to the opinion of some scholars who consider love as the result of seeing the beauty of beloved; Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani considers it as being intrinsic in the heart of human’s existence and believes that its outward reflection is manifested in the form of the beauty of the beloved. He considers human love for God as the only worthy way of being united with God, and one of the special points of his thinking, which is rooted in mystical studies, is the manifestation of this love in virtual love such that the lover can only exist with the presence of the beloved. The intellectual school of Ayn al-Quzat is based on love such that love is the beginning and end of everything. According to him, only through love, God seekers can find the real existence and understand the truth. The present study, using the descriptive-analytical method, attempts to investigate the concept of love in Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani’s school of thought.