love in friendship for the sake of Allah

Assalamualaikum,
Friendship for the sake of Allah is embroidered with sincerity , comfort & trust and furnished with warmth, beauty and serenity , blooming with love for the sake of Allah, so dear sisters and brothers may we keep the passion of friendship glowing for the sake of Allah………..and always welcome our friends into our lives and hearts with love for the sake of Allah so that the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood can be built and nourished, inshaAllah.

“Mahabbah (love) is a condition which man feels in his heart, too subtle to be expressed in words. This subtle spiritual state leads the worshipper to recognize the greatness of God, instills in him the desire, above all things, to please God, makes him unable to tolerate God’s absence, induces in him constant excitement at the thought of God; he finds no rest without God and feels an intimate comfort in continual thought of Him. Yet the idea of the love of man for God does not imply physical attraction and possession. How could it do so—since the true Infinite is too holy to be fully attained or reached or comprehended. It is more to the point to describe the man who knows mahabbah as being completely lost and overwhelmed in the beloved, than to refer to the relationship as one of possession. If the lover were described as submerged in the beloved, it would be more adequate than if they were described as being together.”
~Shaykh Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī

Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese born American philosophical essayist, novelist and poet once said:
“Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons.”


"Love for Allah envelopes the heart,
it rules the heart and it even spreads over everything."
~Imam Ghazali~

Allah (SW) says in the Quran:
“O you who believe, observe your duty to Allah with right observance and die not except in a state of submission (to Him). And hold fast, all of you together, to the rope of Allah, and do not separate. And remember God’s favour unto you: how you were enemies and He put love between your hearts so that you became as brothers by His grace and how you were upon the brink of a fire and He saved you from it…”(3:102-103)

The Prophet (SAW) makes the comparison of the believers to a firm solid body as stated in a Hadith,
“The comparison of the believer with respect to their love, mercy and compassion for one another is like that of a body: if one of it’s limb is hurting, the remainder of the body is afflicted by sleeplessness and fever”

The excellence of love for the sake of Allah and encouraging it,
Riyad as-Salihin (The Meadows of the Righteous)
by Imam Nawawi
http://www.sunnipath.com/library/Hadith/H0004P0046.aspx