in the following, i describe the sufi path (tariqa) as a dialectical process which transforms the person through love. i examine the belief system of islamic mystics as a journey involving both creativity and passion. i do so by using a fresh approach, a perspective that has heretofore yet to be applied to the spiritual alchemy of the sufis.

Recent years have seen a notable resurgence of interest in the philosophy of love and friendship. In this paper, I bring into dialogue two important texts that approach this topic from a Christian point of view: C. S. Lewis‟s The Four Loves and Søren Kierkegaard‟s Works of Love. I shall argue that each thinker helpfully clarifies important points the other leaves obscure, and that Lewis (like K...

One variety of love is familiar in everyday life and qualifies in every reasonable sense as a reactive attitude. ‘Reactive love’ is paradigmatically (a) an affectionate attachment to another person, (b) appropriately felt as a non-self-interested response to particular kinds of morally laudable features of character expressed by the loved one in interaction with the lover, and (c) paradigmatica...

Emotionally-related live organ donation is different from almost all other medical treatments in that a family member or, in some countries, a friend contributes with an organ or parts of an organ to the recipient. Furthermore, there is a long-acknowledged but not well-understood gender-imbalance in emotionally-related live kidney donation. This article argues for the benefit of the concept of ...

Common sense often presents love and science, feelings and reason, as opposite realities: one person reasons without her heart, another has his reasoning impaired by love. More specifically, emotion is thought to lead to a narrowed focus of attention, with enhanced information recall being associated with experiences of emotional significance (Levine & Edelstein, 2009). Moreover, the ability to...

Romantic love is the catalyst behind the spread of the human life. The neurobiology of love embraces the hypothesis that what we call "romantic attachment" or "romantic love" may be at least in part the expression of biological factors. A corollary of this hypothesis states that it is possible to learn much about the nature of human love by studying the molecules involved in the expression of s...

This article presents a triangular theory of love. According to the theory, love has three components: (a) intimacy, which encompasses the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness one experiences in loving relationships; (b) passion, which encompasses the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation; and (c) decision/commitment, which encompasses, in the...

Part One addresses the question whether the fact that some persons love something, worship it, or deeply care about it, can endow moral status on that thing. I argue that the answer is ‘‘no.’’ While some cases lend great plausibility to the view that love or worship can endow moral status, there are other cases in which love or worship clearly fails to endow moral status. Furthermore, there is ...

CONTEXT First coitus is considered a major transitional event imbued with cultural relevance. Research has focused on classifying women as virgins, with primary interest in pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection prevention and less on sexuality. This study prospectively explored young women's sexual interest and love at first and subsequent coitus. METHODS Daily diary data were collecte...

Questionnaire measures of attachment style, attachment history, beliefs about relationships, selfesteem, limerence, loving, love addiction, and love styles were administered to 374 undergraduates. Attachment style was related in theoretically expected ways to attachment history and to beliefs about relationships. Securely attached Ss reported relatively positive perceptions of their early famil...