The Natural Inclination Of The Heart Is To Love Allah- Ibn Taymiya

The Natural Inclination Of The Heart Is To Love Allah

The heart has only been created for the worship of Allah, and this is the natural disposition (fitrah) upon which Allah created His servants as the Prophet said,

Every new-born child is born upon the natural disposition and it is his parents that make him a Jew, Christian or a Magian, as an animal produces a perfect young animal, do you see any part of its body amputated?

Then Abu Hurairah, said, recite if you wish the saying of Allah,

The Fitrah of Allah with which He has created mankind. No change is there in the creation of Allah. [Surah Rum (30) : 30], [Bukhari and Muslim]

So Allah has made the natural disposition of His servants to love Him and worship Him Alone, so if the natural disposition was to be left as it is without corrupting it, then it would be cognizant of Allah, loving Him Alone; but the natural disposition does become corrupted due to the sickness of the heart - such as the parents making it a Jew or a Christian - even though this be by the Will and Pre-decree of Allah, just like the body is altered by amputation. But, even after this, it is possible for the heart to return to the natural disposition if Allah makes this easy for the one who does his utmost to return it to the natural disposition.

The Messengers were sent to affirm and re-establish the natural disposition and to perfect it, not to alter it. So when the heart loves Allah Alone, making the religion sincerely for Him, it will not be tried by the love of anyone else, not to mention be tried with passionate love (illegal love for the opposite gender) because were it to be afflicted with passionate love then this would diminish its loving Allah alone.
This is why when Yusuf was tried with this passionate love (directed to him) his love of Allah Alone, making the religion sincerely for him, did not allow him to be overcome by this, rather Allah said,

Thus it was, that We might turn away from him evil and illegal sexual intercourse. Surely he was one of Our chosen, guided slaves. [Surah Yusuf (12) : 24]

As for the wife of al-Aziz, it was because she and her nation were polytheists that she was afflicted with passionate love. No one, is afflicted with passionate love except that this diminishes his singling out Allah Alone for worship and his faith. 

The heart that repents to Allah, fearing Him, has two routes by which it can remove this passionate love:

1. Repenting to Allah and loving Him, for indeed this is more satisfying and purer than anything else, and nothing will be left to love alongside Allah.
2. Fearing Allah, for indeed fear is the opposite of passionate love and removes it.

This love can also be removed by fearing the occurrence of a harm that is more hateful to one than leaving this love. So when Allah is more beloved to the servant than anything else, and more feared by him than anything else; then he will not fall into passionate love or find any love that would compete with his love of Allah, except in the case of negligence or at a time when this love and fear has become weak by his leaving some of the obligatory duties and by performing some of the prohibited actions. For indeed faith increases with obedience and decreases with disobedience, so each time a servant obeys Allah out of love and fear, and leaves a prohibited action out of love and fear, his love and fear becomes stronger, and any love or fear of anything else besides Allah will disappear from his heart.

Extracted from the book- 'Diseases of The Heart and Their Cures' based on Fatawa of Ibn Taymiyyah