Love to Ibadat
THE FIVE STAGES OF LOVE TOWARD IBADAT
WHERE DESIRE BECOMES DEVOTION
There are loves that pull you under. Loves that set you on fire. Loves that ruin you just enough to feel alive. And then — there is the love that empties you.
Until only surrender remains.
This is not romance. This is pilgrimage. A journey from hunger to holiness. From possession to prostration. From “I want” to “I worship.”
The Sufi saints wrote it in silence. Poets bled it onto paper. Prophets lived it — every ache, every fracture, every flame. Love that begins in flesh and ends in the Divine.
These are the stages.
1. HUB (حب) — THE ATTRACTION THAT LIES BEAUTIFULLY
It begins with the spark. A glance. A voice. A presence that disorients logic.
You don’t know why you’re drawn — only that you are. And it feels holy. Until it doesn’t.
Hub is infatuation masquerading as meaning. It is selfish, visceral, temporary. It wants. It needs. It consumes.
It is the gateway drug of the heart.
But for those willing to burn through it — it opens the door to something deeper.
2. ISHQ (عشق) — THE FIRE THAT DOESN’T ASK PERMISSION
Now it consumes you. Fully.
Ishq doesn’t whisper. It invades. It rewires you. The beloved becomes your gravity, your God, your undoing.
This stage is both ecstasy and agony. You write their name into your bones. You forget who you were before them.
It is often called madness. But real mystics know — this is purification.
You must ache enough to outgrow yourself.
And when you do — love matures.
3. MUHABBAT (محبت) — THE LOVE THAT STANDS STILL
You stop chasing.
The heart, finally exhausted, begins to soften.
This stage is quiet. It doesn’t scream. It serves. It understands. It forgives.
The love becomes selfless. Not because you are noble — but because ego can’t survive this long in the fire.
Now, you love without asking for return.
And strangely — that’s when the beloved truly arrives.
4. ULFAT (الفت) — THE SOUL’S MERGING
Ulfat is not about bodies or timelines. It is about spirit — two frequencies vibrating in harmony, even across distances.
Here, the lover and beloved dissolve into each other. Words are no longer needed. Presence is enough.
In Ulfat, there is no more wanting. Only witnessing. You see God in them. And in that seeing, you see yourself — smaller, purer, ready to kneel.
This is the stage where the heart prepares to bow.
5. IBADAT (عبادت) — THE FINAL SURRENDER
You stop loving them.
And you start worshipping what they woke up in you.
This is not obsession. It is submission.
Not to them — but to the force that brought you to them. Through them. Beyond them.
Now, you love God through their shadow. And every heartbreak becomes a hymn.
In Ibadat, you are no longer a lover. You are dust at the doorstep of the Divine.
THE JOURNEY: FROM BODY TO BEYOND
These stages are not linear. You’ll fall. Break. Return. Start over. That’s the nature of sacred love.
But if you make it to the final stage — not with ego, but with silence — then you’ll know:
Love was never meant to complete you.
It was meant to destroy what was false, and leave only truth behind.
That truth is God.
And that’s the only love that survives you.