QUESTION 2. ‘Many of us were introduced to religion through rules, accountability reward and punishment, yet you place love very early in your book, Should our relationship with Allah ultimately be placed more on love than fear.’ If one reads Qur’an, one is imbued with awe and fear of God. Qur’an is for the people who are God fearing and have ‘Taqwah’ (forbearance, God consciousness) which itself means reverence, piety and guarding against wrongdoing. All monolithic religions revolve around fear and awe of God. You are asked to worship God, because you fear him and pray for salvation. The Qur’an says,

“Qur’an is a book, had it been revealed to a mountain, the fear of God would have ripped the mountain asunder.”Surah Al-Hashr(59: 21). “And who so ever fears Allah; He will make for him a way out. SurahAl-Talaq(65:2-3). The believers are only those who when Allah is mentioned, their hearts become fearful. Surah Al-Anfal (8:2). Although this fear is a kind of “lover’s mortification,” the mortification has the upper hand over love and the fear outpaces the affection. The main motive here seems disciplining the body and restraining the worldly desires to purify the soul. In the Islamic context,love means the very being of God. Love is an ocean is of God from God and is flowing back........

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