Love: the soul's longing back
عشق · محبةἔρωςʿishq · maḥabba · erōs: passionate love; love
I
Plato, Symposium 201d
ἔρως · δαίμωνerōs · daimōnlove; a spirit between
Diotima's Love is neither god nor mortal but a daimōn between, carrying prayers up and gifts down; her ladder (210a–212a) climbs from one beautiful body to the beautiful itself. AI
Read it in the reader →On: Symposium 201d ff. and 210a–212a (Burnet's Greek, Jowett and Lamb).
II
Ibn Sīnā, al-ʿAyniyya ¶ 8
Ibn Sīnā's dove has come down into the body and weeps whenever she remembers the dwellings at the sanctuary: love as the memory of where the soul came from. AI
Read it in the reader →On: al-Qaṣīda al-ʿayniyya, verse 8 (see verse 1 for the descent).
III
Suhrawardī, Hayākil al-nūr ¶ 27
عاشق · معشوقʿāshiq · maʿshūqlover; beloved
Suhrawardī: 'the First is a lover of His own essence alone, and beloved by His own essence and by others'. The philosophers' ʿishq, close to Plotinus's One that is loved. AI
Read it in the reader →On: Hayākil al-nūr ¶27.
IV
Ibn Sīnā, Risāla fī al-ʿishq (Mehren 1894)
Ibn Sīnā's Treatise on Love: every being moves by a love of its perfection, up to the Good that loves itself. Mehren's Arabic edition is on disk but not yet in the reader. AI
Read it at the source ↗On: Mehren, Traités mystiques d'Avicenne, fasc. 3 (Leiden: Brill 1894), public domain; a scan on archive.org.
V
Ibn ʿArabī (attributed), al-Dawr al-aʿlā ¶ 6
يحبهم ويحبونهyuḥibbuhum wa-yuḥibbūnahuHe loves them and they love Him
The prayer asks for the love of Q 5:54, 'He loves them and they love Him': love from both sides, which Sperl names as the point where the Quran parts from Plotinus. AI
The Qurʾān here: 5:54
﴿يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مَن يَرْتَدَّ مِنكُمْ عَن دِينِهِۦ فَسَوْفَ يَأْتِى ٱللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍ يُحِبُّهُمْ وَيُحِبُّونَهُۥٓ أَذِلَّةٍ عَلَى ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَعِزَّةٍ عَلَى ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ يُجَـٰهِدُونَ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَا يَخَافُونَ لَوْمَةَ لَآئِمٍ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ فَضْلُ ٱللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَآءُ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ وَٰسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ﴾
O ye who believe! Whoso of you becometh a renegade from his religion, (know that in his stead) Allah will bring a people whom He loveth and who love Him, humble toward believers, stern toward disbelievers, striving in the way of Allah, and fearing not the blame of any blamer. Such is the grace of Allah which He giveth unto whom He will. Allah is All-Embracing, All-Knowing.
Q 5:54 ↗TanzilPickthall (1930)
Read it in the reader →On: Ḥizb al-dawr al-aʿlā ¶6, quoting Q 5:54 and 2:165.
VI
Ibn ʿArabī, Tarjumān al-ashwāq ¶ 33
The beloved answers: is it not enough that I am witnessed in his heart at every moment? The one longed for is already inside the longing. AI
Read it in the reader →On: Tarjumān al-ashwāq, couplet 33 (Nicholson 1911).
VII
Ibn al-Fāriḍ, al-Khamriyya ¶ 1
Ibn al-Fāriḍ drinks, in remembrance of the Beloved, a wine that made him drunk before the vine was created: a love older than the world. AI
Read it in the reader →On: al-Khamriyya, verse 1 (Nicholson 1921).
VIII
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9.9
ἐρᾷerāishe loves (him)
The soul loves the One as a daughter loves a noble father, a heavenly Aphrodite; here she is a common one. Plotinus's own Diotima. The love runs one way: the soul 'loves him of necessity', while the One has no thinking and neither knows nor loves out toward her (VI.9.6). That is the difference Sperl draws with Q 5:54. AI
Read it in the reader →On: Ennead VI.9.9 and VI.9.6, Volkmann's Greek (First1KGreek); the contrast is Sperl's (see the bridge 'ἐρᾷ · οὐδὲ νόησις').