This sūra begins with a command not to show friendship or love to enemies. Later in the sūra, however, several verses qualify what kind of enemy is beyond the possibility of friendship.

In order to illustrate – or justify – this attitude toward enemies, the sūra states that this was the pattern of Abraham. Here Abraham is presented as saying to those who worship a god other than Allah that enmity and hatred between him and them would be eternal.

The Language of Love in the Quran
Gordon Nickel

The question of whether God loves is one that people often ask when they want to understand a religion’s concept of God.

The Quran certainly contains many statements about the love of Allah for humans. In the Quran, Allah loves people who do good and are just, but does not love people who do evil or are proud and boastful.

Only a few verses discuss human love for Allah or the love of humans for each other. The Quran contains no commandment to love either Allah or other humans.

The two Arabic verbs that the Quran uses to express love are aḥbba and wadda. The most common of these verbs, aḥabba, appears sixty-four times in the Quran. In forty-six instances, the subject of the verb is Allah and the objects are various people. Some twenty-two statements specify people whom Allah loves, and twenty-four statements indicate people whom Allah does not love.

Allah loves the “doers of good” (muḥsinūn; 2.195; 3.134, 148; 5.93), the “ones who act fairly” (muqsiṭūn, 5.42; 49.9; 60.8), and the “ones who guard (themselves)” (muttaqūn; 9.4, 7). These three objects of Allah’s love appear most frequently among a total of fourteen different objects. On the other hand, Allah does not love the “evildoers” (ẓālimūn; 3.57, 140; 42.40), the “arrogant and boastful” (mukhtālan fakhūran; 4.36; 31.18; 57.23), and the “workers of corruption” (mufsidūn; 5.64; 28.77). There are fourteen kinds of people whom Allah does not love. The Quran says that Allah does not love the “prodigal” (musrifūn; 6.141; 7.31). This sets up a striking contrast to Jesus’ parable of the “prodigal son” in the Gospel according to Luke 15:11–32. Other noteworthy statements are that Allah loves those who are “mighty toward the disbelievers” and “struggle in the way of Allah” (5.54), and those who fight in his way (61.4).

The noun for love related to the verb aḥabba, maḥabba, occurs only once in the Quran, in a story about the baby Moses. There Allah says, “I cast love on you [Moses] from me” (20.39). The noun ḥubb appears several times but never in relation to Allah’s love.

The second verb for love in the Quran is wadda. The sixteen occurrences of this verb in Muslim scripture seem to relate to what humans “wish for.” However, two words derived from this verb occur in relation to Allah. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will assign love (wudd) to “those who believe and do righteous deeds” (19.96). The quranic prophet Shu‘ayb describes his Lord as “loving” (wadūd) in 11.90, and the same term is used for Allah in 85.14.

Beyond the statements about Allah using these two verbs, the Quran contains a few verses that mention human love for Allah or human love for humans.

Human love for Allah seems to be mentioned in an incidental way, such as in 5.54: “Whoever of you turns back from his religion, Allah will bring (another) people whom He loves, and who love Him.” Other verses mentioning human love for Allah are 2.165 and 3.31, and possibly 2.177 and 76.8.

Descriptions of human love for other humans seem similarly incidental: 3.119, 9.24, and 59.9 (using aḥabba); 5.82, 30.21, and 42.23 (using wadda). Among these verses is the statement that Christians are closer in affection to the Muslims (5.82) and the lovely verse, “He created spouses for you from yourselves, so that you may live with them, and he has established love and mercy between you” (30.21).

The Quran forbids love (mawadda) for enemies in 60.1 and then says that love may be possible for enemies who have not fought against the Muslims (60.7–8). Less compromising is the statement at 58.22 that “believers” will not love those who oppose Allah and his messenger.

The difference between the Quran’s material on love and biblical teaching is more than simply the New Testament affirmation that the love of God is unconditional. The God who loved humanity “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8) is certainly quite different from the quranic portrait of Allah. But the biblical affirmation goes further: God demonstrated his love in history by sending his Son to die for humanity (1 John 4:9–10).

That divine demonstration of love becomes an example for human behavior: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

Pakistani scholar Daud Rahbar discussed the love of the Quran’s Allah in a Cambridge dissertation published as God of Justice. He later wrote that he saw the love of a “worshipable” God shown by the one who forgave his killers from the cross.

60.1 – Do you offer them friendship when they have disbelieved... ?
Sūra 60 is another of the sūras that seem to come out of a battle situation. The opening verse commands “believers” not to take their enemies as friends. Why offer enemies love (mawadda) if they oppose the messenger and disbelieve in his preaching? The answer appears in 58.22: “believers” will not love those who oppose Allah and his messenger.
Later in the sūra, the Quran allows love to enemies “who have not fought you in the (matter of) religion” (60.7–9).

60.1 – If you have gone forth to struggle in My way
“Struggle” here translates the Arabic word jihād. This particular noun appears only four times in the Quran (also 9.24; 22.78; 25.52). The sense of jihad that the Quran intends in each of these occurrences may be partly determined by context. If the context is a battle scene, or if jihad appears close to vocabulary of fighting (qātala, vv. 8, 9), jihad tends to pick up the sense of fighting.