AcademicFreedomBlog

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.

A Muslim friend asked me that question after lunch together one day. It seems to wrangle Muslims that Christians should be so presumptuous as to refer to the One and Only God as a relative, as if there could be anyone near His equal. To suggest that the one true God has a partner is the unforgivable Islamic sin called “shirk,” and is denounced in no uncertain terms in many parts of the Qur’an (for instance, Surah 4:48 and 116).
To reply to my friend that the Bible tells us to refer to Him as Father in prayer (Matthew 6:9) would neither satisfactorily answer his question nor endear him to my source.
A better explanation is that the question is really backwards:
God is not my father in the sense of bloodline, and He is indeed without peer, predecessor, or sequel (Isaiah 43:10-11). God does not fall under our definition of father, because He existed before fathers were invented. On the contrary, He invented fathers to help us understand a little bit how He feels about us.
I should have said to my friend, “You are a father. How do you feel about your children? Do you love them? Do you want them to grow up healthy? to do well in life? Do you do for them what they ask or what they need? Do you discipline them for their own good? Would it hurt for your child to turn away from you? Can the positive response of one of my children make up for the turning away of another?”
God is not my father, but He says to use that word toward Him as the closest approximation from our experience to grasp the awesome way He feels about each of us (Psalm 103:13).
Christians do not commit shirk, because they do not consider themselves to be God’s equal; we don’t even consider ourselves worthy to be in His presence. The right to have any relationship at all with Him must be a pure, unmerited gift, only possible if He makes it available to us (John 1:12). To think that by my attitude or action I could earn any meager level of merit before God… That would be to put an upper limit on God’s greatness above us. To me, that would be shirk.

Recently yet another person said to me, “Well, we believe that man is basically good.” He was contrasting his religion with mine. (I guess he didn’t realize that many people who claim to be of my religion think the same as he does.)
My first thought was to say, “Basically good compared to what?” The response to that would of course be, “What do you mean, ‘compared to what?’” This would allow me to continue: “’Good’ is a comparative word, for example, tall, taller, tallest; or fat v. thin; or high v. low. So, man is basically good compared to what? A porpoise, that plays with its food before it kills it, or a black widow spider, that eats its suitor after it mates?”
The only answer to that is, “No, compare to standards of behavior.” If the standards of behavior are set by men, then of course he is good compared to his own wishy-washy standards. What ‘good’ is that comparison? If you mean compared with the standards of God, be it the Bible, Qur’an, or some other religious book, then you have a problem: Is God perfect or not? Is His standard perfect or not? I am not perfect, and no one who has ever said to me “man is basically good” should claim to be perfect. To say that “man is basically good” is a veiled argument for “God should be OK with my performance, even though I’m not perfect.” Well. that is paramount to saying God is wishy-washy about His own standard.
I said, “My first thought was to say..” because I don’t think it is the best response. A better response would be to begin with a definition of God: “Is God perfect? Is God just? Is God righteous?” Then comes, “I am not perfect. Are you?”
If you or I are to ever have a relationship with God, then somehow a payment for our shortfall must be made, however slight we think it is. Suppose a parent tells their child not to run through the house. Then the child runs through the house and knocks over a lamp, braking it. The child says “I’m sorry,” and the parent says, “I forgive you.” End of story? Who paid for the broken lamp? Being forgiven does not pay for the lost lamp. Paddling the child does not replace the lamp? It’s still gone. Even if the old lamp is not replaced, the cost has occurred, and will be borne by someone. Either the child pays for it or the parent pays for it.
If I run through life and break any part of God’s law, there are only a few options for me to have a relationship with God:
I pay for it, God pays for it, or God is not just and righteous.
I can’t pay for it. Which of the other two options makes the most since? There is only one religion where God pays, and many who claim to be of that religion haven’t really accepted the One who has paid.