“Love” in the Bible and Qur’an

I did a study of the word “love” as it appears in the Qur’an. I don’t speak Arabic, and of course any Muslim will tell you that the Qur’an can only be studied in Arabic. None the less, I think there is something to be gained from considering an English rendering. The one I used can be at this date found online at http://jannah.org/quran/. I understand that there may be several Arabic words variously translated as “love” in English, which might by another linguist have been translated as like, desire, affection, etc., but considering every one of them still seems to reveal a pattern.
I found the word “love” to be rendered 83 times in this translation. The 83 are scattered across the 114 surah (chapters) of the Qur’an. Compare this to 49 uses of the word “love” in just the 5 chapters of 1 John. It appears that the word is much more important in Christianity than it is in Islam. Indeed, two of the uses in the Qur’an are in reference to Christians, one of them chiding Christians for assuming too much of God’s love.
Surah 5:18 “Jews and Christians are wrong to say God loves them, because God punishes sin.”
Surah 5:82 “Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, ‘We are Christians,’.”
There also seems to be a difference in the way the word “love” is used in the Qur’an. Of the 83 uses in the Qur’an, 21 are references to what God loves, 22 to what He does not love, 7 to man’s love toward God, and 33 to other objects of man’s love; and 20 of those 33 refer to man loving the wrong things. All in all, about equal space is dedicated to what man should and should not love and what God loves and does not love. Every reference I found in the Qur’an to what God loves was based on man’s behavior or man’s initiation of love toward God. As an example of “love” consider three uses in Surah 3:31-32.
Surah 3.31 Say: “If ye do love God, Follow me: God will love you and forgive you your sins: For God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
Surah 3.32 Say: “Obey God and His Apostle”: But if they turn back, God loveth not those who reject Faith.
I found no references to God initiating love toward man. Every verse that says God loves, is predicated on man first doing something to receive love as a response, and I found no verses to suggest that God’s love could thereafter not be lost. (Mohammed himself boasted no assurance that his soul was secured. Surah 26.82). I take this to mean that God, the Creator, only loves in response to man, the created.
This is in total contrast with the Bible, which says “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Indeed, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He is the source of love, not us.
“Love” in the Bible is also defined differently. In English I might say I love mashed potatoes, but that merely means that I really like the pleasant sensation I have when I consume them. My love for them is conditional upon what I get from them, and in no way considers any benefit to the potatoe. In the Bible, love from God is defined as unconditional, for “neither death nor life, nor angles, not principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Since I am a created thing, the verse suggests that I can do nothing to quench God’s love for me. Nor can you. What is more, the “loving-kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 103:17). The end of this verse is typically translated, “to those who fear Him.” This is not like the Greek (New Testament) word for fear, which means anticipation of punishment. This Hebrew word for fear includes realizing total dependence on His mercy, realizing we can do nothing to earn, dissuade, or affect it in any way.
This is the part most difficult to swallow—we can do nothing. That is why many people who call themselves Christians in practice more resemble Muslims, feeling compelled to add something to the formula to gain or maintain a right position with God. But grace plus anything is no longer grace. If the Bible is true, then the only thing that man must add is acceptance of what is freely offered and already completed.
Toward the Qur’an, the only logical response is to serve in hopes of approval. Toward the Bible, the only logical response is to relax, and serve out of gratitude for what is secured.

This entry was posted on January 9, 2012 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Comparative religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.