The author of this book, may God be pleased with him, said: Those who love one another in God are those adepts of the stations who have risen above natural love to spiritual love. Their spirits are alike in some feature, and they delight in one another because of this similarity as long as they remain in the state of division. Moreover, these persons, having turned towards their origin and concurred in rising towards the beloved, inhale the breeze that wafts from him and seek to be joined with him, [211] until, when they have become joined, they are united and brought together with him. Thus they rise beyond this rank to that above it, in which both their love for him and their love for one another in him perish.

Let it be understood that those who love one another in God do so by the spirit of God, which is one manifestation among his signs. Now a lover finds comfort in the signs of his beloved as long as he is not united with the manifestation.But when he is joined to the manifestation, he is distracted by it from the (other) signs. There is never any hostility whatsoever between the adepts of this station.

It is related from Ibn Masʿūd of the Prophet that he said: “Those who love one another in God are set upon a column of ruby and look out over the inhabitants of Paradise. When one of them looks down, his beauty illumines the houses of those who dwell there, just as the light of the sun illumines the houses of those who dwell in this world, and the people of Paradise say: ‘Let us go out and look at those who love in God.’ Then they go out and look, and they see written on their foreheads: ‘These are those who love one another in God.’”

The signs of love in God [212] are ten in number. The first is that both parties seek no other end from their love than God. The second is that they aid each other in obedience to God. The third is that each seek God's pardon for the sins of the other.