Seems that the word "love" is relative from a person to the other and from a culture to the other. Some understand "love" to be a heavenly sentiment, attracting to a person that you respect and with whom you are hoping to build a lovely relation, where you would place this sentiment in marriage. After marriage this "love" takes a deeper form and a more intimate and closer relation where all emotions and needs are met and satisfied.
This is the form of love that could be accepted by Islam.
But for others, "love" might mean a tangible relation of a non-married couple. A superficial relation or a deep one, involving levels of physical intimacy and spiritual ones. Here Islam makes a stand and does not permit it. This drags the chaste sentiment to a relation without goal. The only target of such a relation becomes "satisfaction", which when fades out, the whole relation might break easily.
Islam wants love to continue and to prevail. Wants it to be acknowledged and recognized by the whole society, not only the two people involved. Islam puts the "products of love" into consideration; the children who are to come from such relation. They are to be respected and recognized as legal children. The most important to be respected is the woman, who is to be kept cherished and sheltered as a wife, never a mistress who is to be abandoned when her physical beauty fades out or if ever the ignited candle of love calms down.
Seems that the word "love" is relative from a person to the other and from a culture to the other. Some understand "love" to be a heavenly sentiment, attracting to a person that you respect and with whom you are hoping to build a lovely relation, where you would place this sentiment in marriage. After marriage this "love" takes a deeper form and a more intimate and closer relation where all emotions and needs are met and satisfied.
This is the form of love that could be accepted by Islam.
But for others, "love" might mean a tangible relation of a non-married couple. A superficial relation or a deep one, involving levels of physical intimacy and spiritual ones. Here Islam makes a stand and does not permit it. This drags the chaste sentiment to a relation without goal. The only target of such a relation becomes "satisfaction", which when fades out, the whole relation might break easily.
Islam wants love to continue and to prevail. Wants it to be acknowledged and recognized by the whole society, not only the two people involved. Islam puts the "products of love" into consideration; the children who are to come from such relation. They are to be respected and recognized as legal children. The most important to be respected is the woman, who is to be kept cherished and sheltered as a wife, never a mistress who is to be abandoned when her physical beauty fades out or if ever the ignited candle of love calms down.