Love and beauty in Sufism

Love and beauty have been defining elements of Islam from its inception. While Sufism provides the most extensive discourse on love in the Islamic world, such discussions are but one dimension of an extensive love tradition. Many of the themes associated with the Sufi love tradition find direct reflections in the secular literary traditions of the Muslim world, particularly udhri ghazal poetry, where the beloved becomes the personification of the ideal and the lover is condemned to die in love. The heart is transformed by perceiving and contemplating God’s Beauty, being drawn to God’s Beauty, and conforming to or manifesting God’s Beauty. The relationship between the lover and the beloved is defined by beauty and love. As love pertains to the realm of eternity and lies beyond the realm of form and matter, it is an expression of the eternal relationship between the Divine and the human and thus extends beyond any one religion.