Every devoted Muslim desires to be more devoted to Allah. It is pleasant to feel in one’s heart an ardent desire to love Allah and the Prophet (s.a.w) more. When I visited Makkah and Madina this year, alhamduillah, I was filled with fondness for Allah and His Messenger (s.a.w) and my heart felt happy in loving my Rabb and His Habeeb. I felt I could not love them enough. I wanted to love them more. My heart burned to love them further though my heart was already full to the brim and my tears were endlessly flooding out onto my face, out of love for them. I wish there was some way I could increase my capacity to love them. To expand the vessels of my soul and pour out more love for them.
My heart had never been so complete with love and the happiest; and although it was happy and satisfied, yet it craved to love more. To live here forever until I die and meet them.
Dawud al-Tai used to say during the night in prayer to Allah, ‘My desire for You has negated all other desires, and it has come between me and the desire for sleep. My longing for looking on at Your Countenance has lessened all worldly delights and has come between me and my lusts. I stand in Your devotion with all of my heart, body and Soul, O Kind One (al-Karim)! What business have I with anyone other than You? What business have I, With a partner who would turn my heart from returning to You? What would I do if he run away from me and all hopes are frustrated? He can replace me but I have none to replace You!
To the soul in the ecstasy of its heavenly love, the world with its pleasures has vanished away like a morning vapor.
The desire to love and be in devotion is a restless pining, an aching void of a grateful heart in spiritual re-awakening; it is a delightful struggling of a soul bearing closeness to Allah, to dissolve oneself entirely to be near Him.
This lecture on devotion is an attempt to love Allah and the Prophet (s.a.w) more and to keep this love alive every day in the little things that we do. The more we love an object, the more devoted to it we are. Devotion is therefore love manifested.
Devotion to Allah implies ardent affection for Him -- a yielding of the heart to Him with reverence, faith, and piety in the way we think, we speak, we dress, we act with people both family and strangers and particularly in the manner we perform our prayers (Salah).
To a devoted heart, prayer is a delightful conversation that grows one’s relationship with Allah. To a devoted mind, the Quran is sweeter than all sounds that engages and beholds all beauty and wisdom. A devoted personality, rooted in Allah, is one that is merciful in all her relationships with people because she is seeking the merciful embrace of Allah.
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