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Section VII. Chapter Four: Romantic Passion (ʿIshq).
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Though this subject may seem indecent, it is no more indecent than the doctrines of heretics; and just as we described those in order to refute them and guard hearts against their resemblance, so too we describe this in order to refute it and guard the heart against its resemblance.
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Certain people hold that romantic passion (ʿishq) is the finest thing a person can pursue. They claim it refines the spirit and makes the temperament delicate, until the soul becomes shimmering and vibrant from its refinement.
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They say it is a state of intense subtlety, and explain it through nature's action: it is a material that flows to the heart — its origin is a glance, then desire, then attachment, then other materials augment it until it becomes fixed.
And they went so far as to
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They went so far as to attribute it to the action of the stars, saying: when two people have the same ascendant and stand in trine or sextile to each other, and the lot governing their love falls under one star — love and affinity necessarily arise between them.
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They went further still, attributing it to the action of the Creator — claiming that God created souls spherically, like globes, then split each in half and placed each half within a person.
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And therefore, when a soul finds its other half, it becomes attached to it. They pushed further still and made passion into a kind of religious obligation, saying: people are tested with this so they may learn submission in love, and thereby submit to their Creator and worship Him.
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These people in all they say are heedless and irrational. I will first give them a clear refutation of their opening claims, then show them the harms of what they embraced.
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I say: as for what you claim about our Lord, it is not permissible that He test people with what He has forbidden — as it says: 'And God does not impute folly' (Job 24:12), and also: 'For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil cannot dwell with you' (Ps. 5:5).
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As for the claim about spherical halves — since we have already refuted those who hold that souls are pre-existent and made clear that each person's soul is created together with the completion of his form, this claim collapses entirely.
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As for their claim about the stars and the matching of lots and ascendants: if it were as they say, whenever Zayd loves ʿAmr, ʿAmr must also love Zayd — since they are matched; but we do not find it to be so.
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As for their claim that passion begins with a glance and then desire in the heart — I say: precisely for this reason our Lord commanded us to turn both eye and heart toward His service, as it says: 'My son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways' (Prov. 23:26).
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And He forbade us from turning them toward transgression, saying: 'Do not follow your heart and your eyes, after which you go astray' (Num. 15:39).
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It is only that when this state becomes entrenched in the heart and seizes upon it, mastering it — then that person becomes incapable of eating, drinking, and attending to his other affairs.
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Until his body wastes away, his frame grows thin, diseases assail him at their most acute, and feverishness, swooning, palpitations, distress, nausea, and agitation come upon him.
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As it says: 'They have drawn near; their heart is hot as an oven in their ambush' (Hos. 7:6). It may rise to the brain and weaken imagination, thought, and memory — and may abolish sensation and motion.
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Sometimes at the sight of his beloved his senses leave him and he faints for a time, his spirit gone; sometimes at a glance or the mere mention of the beloved he gasps and literally dies — and the proverb becomes literally true.
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As it says: 'For many are the slain she has brought down, and mighty are all her killed' (Prov. 7:26).
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How can a person be a prisoner — he and his reason both — knowing nothing but that person: no Creator, no power, no this world, no next world? As it says: 'The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help even when bound' (Job 36:13).
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And submission and servitude come only toward the beloved and their entourage — sitting at the doors and lurking in every quarter, as it says: 'Lift your eyes to the heights and see — where have you not been ravished? On the roads you sat for them' (Jer. 3:2).
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And sleeplessness at night, rising before dawn, hiding from anyone who might encounter him, dying deaths of embarrassment at every blush — as it says: 'and the adulterer's eye'
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'watches for the twilight, saying: no eye will see me, and disguises his face' (Job 24:15).
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And killing comes — of the pursuer or the pursued, of one of their entourages, or of both parties and their entourages, and of many others along with them — as it says: 'For she has committed adultery; blood is on their hands' (Ezek. 23:37).
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And if one day he obtains what he pursued and nature gets its due — proportionate to the effort he expended on himself — it returns in disgust and regret, for his attachment to her was greater than her attachment to him.
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As it says: 'And Amnon hated her with very great hatred, for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her; and Amnon said to her: Get up and go!' (2 Sam. 13:15).
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A person should understand that he has sold his soul, his religion, all his senses, and his reason — after the arrow strikes that he cannot evade — as it says: 'until an arrow pierces his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare' (Prov. 7:23).
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This state is beautiful only when a man is fond of his wife and she is fond of him, for the building up of the world — as it says: 'A loving hind, a graceful doe — let her breasts satisfy you at all times' (Prov. 5:19).
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Let the husband extend from his desire toward his wife with reason and religion, to the measure that brings their harmony; and let him restrain it from anything else with all his strength and power.