Spiritual Disease and Its Cure by Imam Shams-ud-Deen Muhammad bin Abi Bakr bin Qayyim AlJ awziyyah

Love carries with it many consequences, effects and requirements; whether praiseworthy or reprehensible, useful or harmful; in passion, taste, sweetness, desire, company, communication, closeness, separation, abandonment, happiness, sadness, etc. Praiseworthy love is one which is useful and valuable, as it attracts all good to its owner in this world and the Hereafter to establish his/her happiness. Whereas, harmful love is one which attracts all that is damaging to its owner in his/her world and in his/her Hereafter to establish a life of torment for him/her. Any reasonable person would not choose what is harmful for him/her, and if he/she ever did, it would have been out of ignorance, because sometimes the self wants to discover what is harmful, which leads a person to become unjust to him/herself. When a person chooses what is harmful to him/her in his/her life, his/her choice is either based on a wrong belief or a bad desire. This is the case of those who follow their conjectures and those things which they themselves desire. The emotional effects ( of sadness or happiness) of the praiseworthy love, which earn the believer rewards, are all useful to him/her, whereas those of the reprehensible love earn him/her nothing but loss and harm. This is the consequence of every action, either done in obedience to Allah ~ or in disobedience to Him. For Allah ~ said: ( That is because they suffer no thirst, nor fatigue, nor hunger in the Cause of Allah, nor do they take any step to raise the anger of disbelievers, nor inflict any injury upon an enemy, but it is written to their credit as a deed of righteousness. Surely, Allah does not waste the reward of the good-doers. Nor do they spend anything (in Allah' Cause) - small or great - nor cross a valley, but is written to their credit, that Allah may recompense them with they best of what they used to do.)1