Jābir related that the Messenger of God said: “The believer befriends and is befriended, for there is no good in one who becomes close to no one and to whom no one is close, and the best of men is the one who is most helpful to others.” But we have already dealt sufficiently with this subject in the section on the excellence of love, so here we shall present accounts of some of the religious authorities and [116] imams who have gone before us.

We may begin with Abū Bakr b. Dāwūd because of the great quantity of material [he] has related about love.It is related from Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammadb. ʿArafathat he said: “I visited Muḥammadb. Dāwūd while he was suffering from the illness from which he died, and I said to him, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘The love of whom you know,’ he said, ‘has brought about what you see.’ So I said to him, ‘Why should you not enjoy him when it is within your power to do so?’ But he replied, ‘Enjoyment has two aspects. One is the permitted gaze, and the other is the for bidden pleasure. As for the permitted gaze, it has brought about what you see. But as for the forbidden pleasure, I have been deterred from it by what my father reported to me, namely, that Suwayd b. Saʿīd said that ʿA1ī b. Mushir related from Abū Yaḥyā al-Qattāt from Mujāhid from Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet said: “He who falls in love, is chaste, conceals his passion, and dies, dies a martyr.’” Then he broke into verse:

Section One. Sayings of the Followers and the Jurists and Religious Authorities Who Came after Them on the Description of Love and Lovers Among the reports that have been handed down to us from the judge Ahmad b. Muḥammad is that a question in writing was referred to Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab containing the following verses: