Islam's statement on love

[TheSuperstar]

As-salamu alaykum,

My apologies, but I am genuinely unsure whether this is the right category to ask this, but I felt like the knowledge category fits the topic the best.

For the past few weeks I've been in a little confusion and there's some stuff that really bothers me and makes it harder for me to sleep. That is love.

So, for a year and a half now, I've been studying in a city different from the one I was born in. I've met a lot of people and in the bunch, there is a girl that is studying on the same year as I do. We've known each other since the start and on a daily basis, my feelings towards her are getting stronger and stronger.

I've been doing some research on the islamic viewpoint on love and I've come to a lot of confusion and stuff that doesn't seem to make sense of the first look. Here, I was hoping that I would get some details and perhaps an explanation. I've read that looking at someone of the opposite gender, touching (as well as kissing) are forbidden. I've been aware that sexual acts outside of marriage are not allowed by any means and I can totally understand it. Though, now that I've read that being friends with someone of the opposite gender, looking at them, touching them (e.g shaking hands, hugging, kissing) is not allowed, I've come to a confusion.

You are probably aware that back in the previous centuries, marriages were agreed between two families for their sons / daughters to be together. Nowadays, that most of us live in a world full of alcohol, night outs, relationships and other stuff that I personally don't like at all, it certainly is almost an impossibility to get married without being in a relationship first. That, though, is not allowed in islam and from this point of view, it seems like our religion contradicts with the modern mankind principles.

My issue is that I will become basically a sinner for talking with someone, and perhaps eventually ending up in a relationship with her (and marrying her in the end, which is one of my goals because of the way I've felt about her for the past year and a half - there can't pass a day without me thinking of her, there can't pass a moment without me begging God inside to make her my wife as I deeply care about her and her well-being more than I seem to care about myself).

Now my direct question ends up being how and what to do in a situation like this. In our era, you can't marry someone without being in a relationship; you can't be in a relationship without being "friends" first (while being friends with the opposite gender is forbidden in first place); you can't be friends without getting to know each other (which is can't happen due to the prohibition of looking and talking to the other gender). From this point onwards, I can't ask Allah for her love because in one way or another, it has to end in a sin (a smaller one such as kissing or holding hands - because let's be honest, mankind in the 21st century operates so that you have to hold her hands if she's in a relationship with you or else the relationship won't last at all). While that seems to not be a naturally big sin, it still is a sin and therefore, I am unable to beg God for her love because my prayers will 100% be ignored as they involve sins.

I am genuinely out of ideas what to do, and asking Allah for her love seems just wrong. I can kind of understand the viewpoint which most of these "love bans" come from, but only God can change the World and the way it operates nowadays. I can't affect or change it at all so I am left with just staying here in the middle of psychical nowhere and all I can do is sit, wait and do nothing, which frankly, will likely bring me nowhere.

With this, I was hoping to hear your thoughts, opinions and suggestions that I hope will help me a bit further.

Thank you in advance.

[Misbah-Abd]

Salaams brother,

"it seems like our religion contradicts with the modern mankind principles." This is where you may go astray. It is not the Creator and His laws that have to conform but the creation has to conform to the Creator. Because the world is the way it is in the 21st century with all its oppression, corruption and sin doesn't make it acceptable to go with that norm when it contradicts the Law of Allah. Because the disbelievers make it acceptable to have premarital relations doesn't mean that the Muslims have to follow suit. Look, you know the halal from the haram. Were these people you associated with disbelievers? Is that girl a Muslim or not? The problem with hanging out with disbelievers and you start to act like them and imitate them. And Allah says in many places in the Quran to not take them as friends and protectors. Now you have fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have been free mixing with in the first place.

The scholar Ibn Jawzi said:
"Be wary of the lustful glance, for it is the cause of disease (of one's faith) and its cure at its initiation is easy (meaning if one avoids it), but if it is repeated, its evil is empowered and its cure becomes difficult."

"The ego has a natural propensity to follow its desires, and because of that it is in need of being striven against and repulsed. Whenever the ego's desires are not repulsed, the mind charges toward them, seeking what the ego desires, so that it seeks corrupt opinions, false ambitions and unusual expectations."

And Allah Knows Best

[azc]

If your prepared for marriage with her in future then she should be known to it.