Decolonizing the Politics of Love: A Ghazālian Genealogy of Love in Islam

Abstract

This article invites a consideration of more diverse conceptions of love. It proposes as a contribution specific Islamic forms of love, especially those theorized by the medieval Muslim theologian, Abū H.āmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). The goal is to decolonize the concept of love from dominant Christocentric notions of agape and redemptive forms of love that shape interfaith dialogue. It argues why we need to explore and take account of different conceptions of love. Pope Benedict scandalized the Muslim world with his 2006 Regensberg lecture. The source for many of these misunderstandings is the equation of the ontotheology of love in a particular strand of Christianity with love in Islam. Historically, Islam’s ontotheology is centered around incumbent mercy, whereas love is a product within a theological apparatus of experiential relationships of humans with each other as well as with the divine. The article elaborates why Ghazālī’s phenomenology of love enriches our understanding of love. Foregrounding knowledge, perception, and obedience, Ghazālī offers a complex experiential conception of love within a Muslim theological ‘apparatus’ and matrix. Proposing that Christianity and Islam have love in common, as some have proposed, does not do justice to the rich, but very different conceptions of love in each tradition.