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The Search for Love

By Yasmin Mogahed

I spent my life running after the creation. I have always been what you might call ‘needy’. I needed friends, I needed people. All the time. And I couldn’t handle letdowns.

But at the heart of what makes us run after the creation, is simply love. The need to give and receive love. This need has been put in us by the Creator. And every need created by God, has been created for a purpose. The need to give and receive love was created as a driver. A driver that pushes us back to God. You see, we began with God, and God wants us to come back to Him in this life—even before we come back to Him in the next. So He puts inside us, drivers intended to bring us back. Intended to bring us back Home.

But our problem is we get lost along the way.

We can’t deny the drive; but we get lost because we seek to fulfill it in the wrong way. We look to fulfill that need in the wrong place. The driver was created by God to take us to Him. But instead, that driver takes us towards the creation. And that’s where we get lost.

Why do we run after other people? Why do we run after money? Why do we run after status, or power? We run after these things because we want love and respect. And we believe that by attaining these things, we will succeed at getting both love and respect.

But there is a fascinating formula that governs this world. And it is very, very simple. Unfortunately, we almost always get this formula wrong.  Yes, we all have that same driver inside us, but the human being is hasty. We prefer the immediate over the delayed, the seen over the unseen, the physical over the spiritual. We run first to what we can see and feel and touch. We run first to what we *think* is closer. We do this because while the human being is needy and dependent, the human being is also impatient and weak. We go for what seems closest, easiest, quickest.

So we go towards the creation.

See, we think that the more we run after this world (dunya)–the more we run after the love of people, and wealth and beauty and status–the more we will have of it. We think that the more intensely we want something, the more likely we are to get it. And when we don’t get it, we become angry—so angry—at God Himself. As though the *intensity* of my wanting, somehow makes me entitled to having.

But the more we drown in this false equation, the more we fail at reaching our goal, and the more we miss the true–but simple–equation of love and life. That equation is clear: The more intensely we want the creation itself, the less likely we are to attain it. If it is love you need, and you seek it from the creation, you will never *truly* get it. Or get enough. Anything of the creation sought for its own sake will evade you.

And will never fill you.

Even happiness itself: The more you run after it, the more it evades you. But if you run to God instead, happiness will run after you. If you run to God instead, the love of people will run after you. If you run to God instead, success will run after you. True success in this life, and the next. If you run to God instead, provision will run after you. This, brothers and sisters, is the secret formula for which tyrants have burned down cities, and kings have searched the world—but never found.

This is the secret. The only formula you need to know.

In a profound hadith (Prophetic teaching), a man came to the Prophet (pbuh) and said: “O Messenger of God, direct me to an act, which if I do, God will love me and people will love me.” He said: “Detach yourself from the world, and God will love you. Detach yourself from what is with the people, and the people will love you.”  [Ibn Majah]

Ironically, the less we chase after the approval and love of the people, the more we gain it. The less needy we are of others, the more people are drawn to us and seek our company. This hadith teaches us a profound Truth. Only by breaking out of the orbit of the creation, can we succeed with both God—and people.