Affinity (Islam)

This may be a relationship of similarity or of complementarity, but in Islam tends to imply the former. It is one of the causes and preconditions of love, affecting both subject and object. The other causes are the qualities of the beloved and the lover's perception of them (Ibn al-Qayyim) or beauty and benificence (Ibn al-Dabbagh). There is the obvious affinity as, for example, the affinity between children of similar ages and interests; and there is the hidden relationship, that of an inward nature, which is not evident in the person's outward form. The second, or secret, affinity is of two kinds. The first is resemblance of the believer to God through attributes. The second may not be revealed. There has been dispute as to whether man can love God or take pleasure in a vision of God as there can be no affinity between the creator and the created; while some would say that it is the affinity man has with the upper world that makes him love God. Ibn al-'Arabi indicates that the affinity between man and God is greater than that between man and a youth or a woman, since God can actually be a man's faculties, his hearing, sight, and so on, while others can only be the object of these faculties. Ibn al-Qayyim emphasizes complementarity or dissimilarity when describing the relationship between man and God, that of servant and divinity.

Affinity implies reciprocity and permanence. This may be why true passion ('ishq), arising from essential similarity, can end only in death. It is similarity which is the fundamental cause of love, the lover sees himself mirrored in the beloved and in loving the beloved in reality loves himself. Such temporary affinity as arises from proximity to a person or being involved in the same enterprise lasts only as long as the circumstances which produced it. But true affinity, of the essence, lasts as long as the essence lasts.