What is Muhabbat e Ilahi?
Muhabbat e Ilahi is the love of Allah, not a sentiment spoken about but a genuine, felt love in the heart that changes the inner state of the person who has it and naturally produces everything else that Tazkiyah is trying to build.
This tenth and final praiseworthy character trait is placed last not because it is the least important, but because it is the culmination. Every other trait on this list. Tawbah, Khauf, Hayaa, Ikhlaas, Muraqaba, has been building toward this. They are means. This is the end.
When a person genuinely loves Allah, they do not need to force themselves to be sincere, sincerity comes naturally because everything is being done for the one they love. They do not need to constantly fight the nafs's pull toward sin, when something displeases the one you love, you find it genuinely difficult to do. The protective qualities of character that take so much effort to build in their absence become almost effortless in the presence of genuine love.
This is why Muhabbat e Ilahi is the destination. It is not that the other traits become unnecessary, it is that they become the natural expression of a heart that loves Allah rather than a set of rules to follow.
Three Methods for Attaining the Love of Allah
three practical methods for building Muhabbat e Ilahi. They are not alternatives, all three can and should be used together. But clear that the third is the most powerful of all.
Method 1. Daily Meeting with Allah
This is the easiest method, and the one that gives the most direct access to Muhabbat e Ilahi. The principle it is built on is one that everyone understands from human experience:
"When a person sits with someone daily even for a short while, after some days love naturally develops between them. And this love means that if they do not meet for even one day, both become unsettled for each other and wait for each other. The same observation is sufficient proof of this. In the same way, begin daily meetings with Allah, and start zikr.."
Islah ul Akhlaaq. Arif Billah Hazrat Maulana Shah Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar رحمة الله عليه
The method is: every day, sit in wudu in a quiet place for a short fixed time. In this time, do zikr, remembrance of Allah. Include Durood Sharif, Quran recitation, and dua. All of these are forms of zikr, and Allah includes all of it.
Ana jaleesu man zakarani. I am the companion of whoever remembers Me. When a person sits in zikr of Allah, Allah is present as their companion. Daily, this develops into love, because daily meeting with the Most Beautiful, Most Generous, Most Merciful produces exactly what daily meeting with any beloved produces: the heart turns toward Him, misses Him when disconnected, and seeks to return.
A particularly beautiful practice within this method within this method, reciting the names of Allah slowly and meditatively, attending to their meaning:
The Names and What They Open
يَا حَلِيم
Ya Haleem
O Most Forbearing
He has the power to take complete revenge and punishment, and He chooses not to. He restrains Himself out of forbearance. Whoever calls on this name begins to feel: He has the power to punish this sinner fully, and yet He holds back. That sinner will be forgiven.
يَا كَرِيم
Ya Kareem
O Most Generous
Not only forgiveness. He gives reward alongside it. With Kareem there is no just-enough; the generous one gives more than is asked. The sinner who calls on this name begins to feel: alongside forgiveness, He will add His reward.
يَا وَاسِعَ الْمَغْفِرَة
Ya Waas'al Maghfirah
O One Whose Forgiveness is Vast
His forgiveness is not limited by the number of sins or their severity. Even if the sins are mountains, His forgiveness is the ocean. This name opens a door to hope that the nafs cannot close.
a person who reads these names with Ikhlaas and the intention of self-reform, even a person far from good character, will, by Allah's will, become His friend. The daily meeting is the method. Consistency is the key.
Method 2. Reflecting on Allah's Blessings
The second method is the one already explored in the Shukar section, reflecting regularly and deeply on Allah's blessings. Here it returns with a different emphasis: not just to develop Shukar, but specifically to grow love.
"Think about Allah's blessings, this sky, this earth, these rivers, these mountains, these trees, these animals, these birds, the entire universe which Allah has created for our sustenance and nourishment. And He sent His own prophets for our guidance and placed our own worshipped Prophet ﷺ before us. He created everything for us. Every blessing should be recalled with gratitude. This is a rational principle: natural love arises from a benefactor."
Islah ul Akhlaaq. Arif Billah Hazrat Maulana Shah Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar رحمة الله عليه
The logic is straightforward and human: you cannot genuinely see how much someone has given you and feel nothing. Love is the natural response to generosity seen clearly. When a person regularly holds in mind all that Allah has given, not vaguely, but specifically, including the blessings they did not ask for and the calamities they were protected from, love arises as naturally as it does toward any beloved.
The scale of the blessings makes this method particularly powerful. The benefactor here is not a friend or a parent, it is the one who created the entire universe, who sustains every breath, who sent His beloved Prophet ﷺ as a mercy, who opened the door of Tawbah after every sin. When this is truly seen, the heart cannot remain cold.
Method 3. Suhbat of the Lovers of Allah
The third method is the most important and most transformative, the elixir of both the other methods, and the one the scholars return to as the most direct path to Muhabbat e Ilahi.
It is sitting in the company of those who have genuine love of Allah, the lovers of Allah, the people of taqwa, the righteous whose hearts are connected to Him.
"Sometimes sitting with a person who has love of Allah, coming to the lovers of Allah, giving them Hadri and listening to their words with love and conviction and sitting with them. In hadith sharif it is narrated that the hearts of those with taqwa are like magnets, just as a salt ear gives salt, a silver ear gives silver, a golden ear gives gold. So if you sit with those who love Allah and listen to their words, you will begin to feel that love too, by the grace of Allah."
Islah ul Akhlaaq. Arif Billah Hazrat Maulana Shah Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar رحمة الله عليه
The principle is: love is contagious. A heart that is genuinely burning with the love of Allah transmits something to the hearts that sit near it. Not through lecture alone, not through books alone, but through presence. This is the suhbat that the Quran commands, that the Prophet ﷺ emphasised, and that the scholars of Tazkiyah return to in every context.
This requires honesty about what it costs. It is not easy. It requires sacrificing pride, sitting as a student, willing to receive, putting aside the rank and reputation the nafs wants to protect. And it costs effort, the journey to the people of Allah is not always convenient.
From Islah ul Akhlaaq
Laik shireeni o lazaat muqarrar
Hast bar andazah-e ranj-e safar
The sweetness and delight at the destination / Is in proportion to the difficulty of the journey
Maulana Rumi رحمة الله عليه, quoted in Islah ul Akhlaaq
But : if this nai'mat is found even for free, it would still be undervalued. The journey to the lovers of Allah, however difficult, is proportionally rewarded at the destination. As Maulana Rumi رحمة الله عليه says: the sweeter the destination, the greater the journey that earned it. And there is no sweeter destination than the love of Allah.
Another saying quoted: Yeh mili nahin hai yoon qalb o jigar honay khoon / Kyun mein kisi ko doon yeh meri mufat ki nahin. This is not given without the heart and liver becoming blood. Why would I give it to anyone for free, it is not free for me either.
The suhbat of the lovers of Allah. Listen to Muhabbat e Ilahi ki Tarap to feel this longing. is not a casual visit. It is a commitment, to sit, to listen with heart and conviction, to sacrifice pride, to return again and again. But what it produces is exactly what every other method on this list has been preparing the heart for: the genuine, transformative love of Allah that makes the rest of Tazkiyah not just possible but natural.
Whom Does Allah Love?
from Sayyid ul Awliya Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad Rifa'i رحمة الله عليه, describing which servants Allah loves and what qualities mark them.
From Sayyid ul Awliya Hazrat Sayyid Ahmad Rifa'i رحمة الله عليه
Allah loves the servant with whom He has this relationship, and these are the qualities of those servants:
Shows them their own faults
Allah shows this servant what is actually wrong inside them, because you cannot be reformed without seeing clearly what needs reforming. This is the beginning of Tazkiyah itself.
Plants love and compassion for all creation in their heart
This servant's heart naturally holds warmth and care for people, not contempt, not indifference. The love of Allah in the heart overflows toward His creation.
Makes their hands generous
Generosity becomes their nature, they give freely, without calculation, without holding back.
Gives them special desire for generosity and hospitality
Beyond just giving when asked, they actively want to give, want to host, want to be the source of goodness for others.
Gives their nafs humility and makes their eyes weep
The nafs becomes low and humble, not proud or self-satisfied. And the eyes weep, from awareness of their own shortcomings and from love and longing for Allah.
Through humility and helplessness, draws them close to Allah
It is precisely through acknowledging weakness, not through strength or achievement, that this servant becomes close. Allah is not in the treasure of pride; He is in the treasure of the humble.
Removes from their heart the desire to be great before people
The nafs's craving for status and recognition dissolves. They no longer need to be seen as important. This is the freedom that Tazkiyah promises.
Gives them adab with creation as the path to adab with Allah
Adab with Allah means adab with His creation, because those who respect and honour people find Allah's doors open. Those who quarrel with and belittle creation find themselves deprived of closeness with Allah. The path to Allah runs through how you treat His servants.
The Destination
We have now covered all ten praiseworthy character traits. Each one has been a step. Tawbah to clear the slate, Khauf to create awareness, Umeed to keep hope alive, Hayaa to build inner restraint, Shukar to recognise what was given, Wafa to be true to the word, Sabr to give the Deen strength over the nafs, Ikhlaas to purify the intention, Muraqaba to keep Allah's presence constant. And now Muhabbat e Ilahi, the place all of them were leading to.
The state a person reaches when genuine love of Allah is in the heart is the state described at the opening of this entire section: Akhlaaq e razeela jatay rahain, akhlaaq e hameeda paida ho jain, ghafflat min Allah jati rahay, tawajjuh ila Allah paida ho jay, the blameworthy traits leave, the praiseworthy ones arrive, heedlessness toward Allah shifts to constant attention toward Allah.
This is not perfection. It is not the end of struggle. It is the state in which the struggle is transformed, where the pull of the nafs is real but the love of Allah is stronger. Where sin does not become impossible but becomes genuinely difficult, because the one you love would be displeased. Where every act of worship, instead of being a duty performed, becomes a meeting with the beloved.
The path does not end here. Return to the Tazkiyah overview to explore the blameworthy traits that block this path. Muhabbat e Ilahi is not a final resting point, it is the beginning of a different quality of life. A life in which the Quran and hadith come alive in the heart because the heart loves who they are from. A life in which prayer is not a duty but a meeting. A life in which the commands of Allah are not constraints but expressions of love toward the one who gave them.
That is the life Tazkiyah is building toward. The ten good traits in this section are the road. Muhabbat e Ilahi is where the road arrives.
Next: Removing What Blocks the Path
These ten praiseworthy traits are what Tazkiyah builds. But there are also blameworthy traits. Akhlaaq e Razeela, the diseases of the heart that block the path. Kibr, Hasad, Riya, Keena, Ghussa, and others. Each one has its own diagnosis and cure. The second half of this section covers them.
Back to Tazkiyah overview →