What is love?

Question: May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah upon you O messenger and successor of Imam al-Mahdi.
I apologize for this question but I need an answer for it as it has troubled me, does the Islamic religion forbid love between a man and a woman if the intention was for marriage and official commitment?

Answer: In the name of Allah the Abundantly Merciful the Intensely Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
May the peace and prayers of Allah be upon Muhammad and the progeny of Muhammad, the Imams and the Mahdis.

Allah SWT has legislated a law for the emotional and sexual relationship between a man and woman since they are male and female, and the law is the marriage contract which requires two witnesses over the contract or announcement after the contract if there were no witnesses. And this is to ensure the rights of the woman and the fruit of the human male and female contact.
And Allah knows that I will try to advise you and every believing girl that perhaps you will walk a right path that guarantees a good and honorable life for you.

What you call love in fact does not go beyond an issue of admiration of looks and appearances or certain behaviors and words which are mostly not genuine and are pretentious and far from the reality of the real character of the man or woman.
And in order for you to know that it is just admiration of appearances, some of which are not genuine, look at the exterior reality. I do not want to add anything to what the exterior reality shows, and what research and surveys of the exterior reality show, which is that what is called love or a love relationship between man and woman ends shortly after marriage or after the sexual relationship as is in the West today. And perhaps at best it does not last for more than few years, whereas true love cannot end and not only lasts for years, rather, even after death and after parting with this world. So the true love and the living and eternal love is the love of Allah SWT, because it is linked to the Living and Eternal One, Him SWT. Therefore, every love that is linked to this love will be living due to the life of this true love. So a woman’s love for her husband or a husband’s love for his wife for the sake of Allah and in obedience to Allah, and for the sake of his spouse to be close to Allah and obedient to Him will be a true and a living love, because in truth it comes from the love of Allah. And who holds hearts in his hand and turns them however he wishes except for Allah SWT? He is the One capable of making the love between a husband and wife last, the love that was based upon His love SWT.

This is why the Messenger encouraged the believer to marry the woman of religion, and encouraged the woman to marry the man of religion. May Allah support you, be honorable, dignified and obedient to Allah SWT, the Generous One who does not abandon His supporters and is merciful toward them in this world and in the hereafter. So He is the one capable of making the believing woman, who directs to Him wanting Him SWT, marry a believing man of religion.

As for relationships that are called premarital love, they in fact often cause the woman to lose her honor, dignity and chastity. So the honorable and dignified believing woman should avoid this matter and let her emotion and love be directed toward the good believing man whom she legitimately marries.
And the believing woman should put her trust in Allah and should rely upon Him and ask Him SWT to make the man she marries a person with whom Allah is truly satisfied, so that she can live an honorable, dignified life filled with love in the days that Allah destined for her in this world.

May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you.
And these are some texts that summarize what sociologists found through surveys:

Based on a survey about a group of love stories, American sociologist William Robinson says that the hypothetical age of love is three years after marriage and not more. And he adds that when love reaches the end of its hypothetical age, its light becomes dim and it could require almost a year for the two people involved in the relationship to realize this truth disguised by the shared life.
And he says that the chemistry of the brain that controls the process of love keeps giving charges of love and energy of emotion for three years. Then these charges stop, as if it was a battery that had run out and can in no way be recharged. Then the relationship built on love becomes a relationship of warmth and faithfulness.
Professor Cindy Hazan from Cornell University, New York made a study of a sample of 5000 men and women who belong to 37 different cultures from the developed and developing worlds, and the study was a collection of psychological and biological tests to measure the level of love between each couple, and the result was that there is no love that can last a lifetime, as the study confirmed that love does not live with the intimate relationship except for a maximum of four years, and then it dies.

Ahmed al-Hasan
Safar, 1431 A.H.

Question 457