What Role Does Fitrah Play in Prioritizing Types of Love?

What do we love in our lives? What is more valuable to us? Have we prioritized our types of love and beloveds at all? How do we know if our prioritization is correct or not? Has our fitrah played a role in this prioritization?

In our lives, we find various types of love, such as love for our parents, spouse, children, wealth, beauty, art, knowledge, power, or a particular sport. Prioritizing different types of love is one of the most important challenges. In many stages of life, we are forced to give up a type of love while we face a dilemma, and that is where the importance of prioritizing and organizing our hierarchy of love becomes clear. If we do not properly prioritize different types of love, we may become doubtful and indecisive in our decisions and even make big mistakes, such as choosing the wrong friends, field of study, career, spouse, neighborhood, etc. The bitter part is that these initial mistakes then tend to get repeated in subsequent choices as well.

All these mistakes happen because our prioritization is inaccurate and does not align with our fitrah and the truth of our existence. When our hierarchy of love is not based on our true self and fitrah, it means that we have not acted normally. Therefore, we do not achieve the desired outcome and inner satisfaction. Without doubt, anything that is not normal will not function properly and desirably, just like an abnormal body with misplaced limbs.

How can we prioritize our loves in a proper way and according to our fitrah? What are the effects of organizing our hierarchy of love?

Why Should Prioritizing Different Types of Love Be Based on Fitrah?

To prioritize our loves correctly, we must first properly understand our existential dimensions and the types of love. As we have learned in previous lessons, the various types of love within us correspond to different perfections in the five existential dimensions: inanimate, vegetative, animal, intellective, and supra-rational. The perfections in the inanimate dimension include items like cars, houses, and jewelry; in the vegetative dimension, they include nutrition, physical strength, beauty, and reproduction. In the animal dimension, they encompass marriage, social status, and fame, and in the intellective dimension, they involve acquiring knowledge and science. We have commonalities with other beings in the first four dimensions—that is, inanimate things, plants, animals, and angels. The supra-rational or spiritual dimension is the distinguishing factor that sets us apart from other beings and is our true self or fitrah. It is because of having this dimension that we are called humans. In this dimension, we are in love with the Infinite and Absolute Perfection; therefore, our true beloved is the beloved of our fitrah, who is called Allah. For this reason, naturally, prioritizing our types of loves should be based on fitrah and connection with Allah.

Now let us review what we have learned about the supra-rational dimension and its Beloved.

The supra-rational dimension, the true self, or fitrah is the spirit breathed into us by God. Due to the existence of this dimension, we are in love with the Infinite and Absolute Perfection, that is Allah, and we find no peace except through connecting with Him. As a result of our love for God and the infinity-seeking desire arising from it, all of us are in love with unlimited perfections such as infinite knowledge, beauty, pleasure, or power, and limited worldly perfections never calm us down. Our only primary Beloved, i.e. Infinite and Absolute Perfection (Allah), can satisfy our desire for infinity.

Therefore, our love hierarchy and prioritization of different types of love should be based on our fitrah because this is the only way we can connect with our primary and true love, and consequently, achieve the purpose of our creation and the happiness and peace resulting from this connection. It is the only way we can act as a true and rational human.

 Which Love Should Be a Priority?

We stated that in a proper prioritization and a normal hierarchy of love, our types of love are prioritized based on fitrah and the Beloved of our human dimension, who is Allah, and it is our fitrah that governs the lower dimensions. In this love hierarchy, according to a rule that Almighty God states in the Holy Quran, Allah, the Household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUT), and jihad (striving) in the way of God should be at the top of all lower or earthly loves.[1] If our love hierarchy is different from this, we have acted against our fitrah and gone astray.

It is necessary to mention that love for the Household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUT) and jihad are in line with love for Allah and connecting with Him because without committed love for the Household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUT) and following them, it is not possible for us to become similar to Allah and connect with Him. Love for jihad also means striving to become similar to Allah and fighting against everything that prevents us from becoming like and connecting with Him.

Therefore, we must be careful that we cannot find our inner truth by merely loving God; rather, our love and affection for God should take priority over all our other attachments.

We must always ask ourselves whether God is the basis of all our decisions, and whether all our relationships, choices, thoughts, and behaviors are regulated according to the satisfaction of God, or if other perfections and beloveds determine the direction of our lives.

It is important to note that the beloveds of our lower dimensions are very respectable and valuable and being fitrah-oriented is not a reason to disregard them. In addition to enjoying them in worldly life, they should be under the rule of our fitrah and serve as means and tools for our growth and connecting us with our true Beloved. For example, love for parents, spouses, children, homeland, beauty, art, or knowledge is very good and worthy as long as it does not prevent us from connecting with Allah.

Now, the question is: What are the signs and effects of a proper love hierarchy?

The Signs and Effects of the Proper Arrangement of Different Types of Love

Just as we mentioned, our fitrah should dominate our material nature in the normal course of our lives as humans, and all the beloveds of our lower dimensions must be tools for connecting with our true Beloved, i.e., Allah. For this reason, one of the signs of the proper hierarchy of love is to grow and become closer and more similar to God day by day. For example, we should become kinder, more patient, more forgiving, and happier day by day. Otherwise, we are not considered normal and are involved in fisq (deviation from normal limits); we would be like a flower that constantly sheds leaves instead of new growth- that is not normal at all, and it is a clear sign that something is amiss.

Another sign of human life and the domination of fitrah over material nature is that we easily give up anything that stops us from connecting with our Beloved, such as leaving a job that keeps us away from God. A lover ignores many things for the sake of his or her beloved. The important point is that when we give up things for the love of God, we do not lose anything, but rather we grow and become closer to the Infinite and Absolute Perfection and eternal bliss.

In general, if the arrangement of our different types of love is correct and we are truly living as human beings, then our fitrah always governs our decisions in life, and all our choices, relationships, thoughts, and behaviors are in a way that is pleasing to our love, that is God, and a means to connect with and becoming similar to Him.

In this lesson, we learned that our human or supra-rational dimension is our true self or fitrah, whose beloved is the Infinite and Absolute Perfection. The love hierarchy and prioritization of our beloveds as a human being should be in a way that puts Allah, the Household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUT), and jihad in the way of God above all other beloveds. In other words, our fitrah should dominate our lower dimensions. In this case, we become closer and more similar to our true Beloved day by day. Therefore, the degree to which we embody human truth is determined by how much our human dimension or fitrah dominates our lower dimensions or material nature.

We look forward to your valuable opinions about the role of fitrah in the hierarchy of love and prioritization of the different types of love.

[1]. Quran, 9:24