Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Since love is original condition (fitrah) of the heart then the love feeling grows together with the function of the heart as a psychological instrument. Some people become adult (falling in love in this case) quickly, but most of them are normal in terms of love feeling, while some others grows lately. In an 8-10 year person, vaguely love feeling to the opposite sex begins to appear although it was often denied. In the first period of puberty (15-17 year), love feeling often emerges and looks for object. A teenager/child in puberty ages who haven't found another person in the opposite sex as his/her love object will get restless from time to time. It doesn't mean, however, that when the teenager finds his love object his/her heart will be restful, since love in the puberty time is like a flaring fire or rolling waves. Puberty love is burning but not established yet, so it is easily broken and changed with another love object. It is beautiful, seducing, but also flaring. It is very rare that pubertal love leads to a marriage.

After the first puberty, in age of 21-25, the love feeling emerges usually is an established feeling. It may emerge because of the first sight, or because of daily interactions.

Love at the First Sight
Love at the first sight is usually triggered by the meeting of certain elements of attraction and certain tastes. The attraction may be coming from the whole figure of someone, or from his deadly glance, his charming smile, his sweet voice, or his very impressing distinctive behaviour. In this case, these distinctive or unique attractions meet a person with distinctive taste. Love can't be scientifically analysed since love isn't part of any science, but it is a part of feeling.
It is difficult to explain the sweetness of sugar as much as it is difficult to analyse the thundering of love. One who has felt the sweetness of sugar, although he can't explain it scientifically, but the sweetness of sugar becomes a haqqul yaqin (very strong belief) which can't be broken by any argument saying that sugar isn't sweet. Likewise, one who has felt the sweetness love will not listen to judgements of others that are based on various analyses.

Love at the first sight is usually sincere, pure, and not sex-connoted. Meanwhile, attractions of chapped-lips, sleek forehead, hip, breast, calves, and so on usually do not cause love at the first sight, but are merely sexual attractions.

Love through Intensive Interaction
Love also can grow because of long communications, for example love between two students attending lectures together, two partners at work, two persons coming from a same distant area, two friends with same problems, or even between a master's son and his servant. Two persons previously hating each other after a long interaction may become love each other. Why? Long interaction, mainly interaction among those facing same or similar problems will show the true characters a person, whether the person is understanding, honest, loyal, or not. Daily living for a long time will change cognitive recognition into affective recognition so that if a person is already known as a charming person then comfort, cheerfulness, and tranquillity will felt during together with him/her. On the contrary, feelings of losing and loneliness will emerge if two persons in love with each other have to separate, and if they have to wait any longer, a missing feeling will disturb them. This psychological process cause in their hearts the beauty of feeling and imagine of hopeful future will probably be created in each of them. Love also may emerge between two persons who often write letters, phone, or chat through the Internet with each other although they haven't met with each other since voices and expression of words may penetrate hearts and cause love to grow.

Inspiration of Love
Love also can grow through inspiration. Inspiration here means an idea suddenly and strongly implanted in the heart. Such an inspiration can be preceded by meetings, by introduction of various ideas through readings, or by dreams. A girl can suddenly fall in love with a leader after seeing him makes a speech, and after it the leader can't disappear from her heart, dominating all of her feelings, at nights he becomes her dreams, at days he becomes her remembrances. There may be a reader who often read a book or novel of a writer. The reader actually had read his books, interested in and admiring his writings. Then at a time her feeling suddenly becomes love, love to the writer, although she hasn't met him.

Inspiration also can come from dreams. According to an interpretation of Al Quran, once upon a time Zulaikha, a daughter of a Yemen governor was planned to marry to a princess, but she refused the plan since she had dreamed of marrying a food affairs minister of a Pharaoh kingdom in Egypt. She was so charmed by the figure the Egyptian minister at her dream. His father accepted the idea and went to Egypt to meet a minister of food affairs. The minister welcomed the dream of the beautiful girl of Yemen. However, Zulaikha was surprised knowing that her to-be husband was so different with the one she had met at her dream.

The minister she had seen in her dream was handsome and very young, while the minister who would marry him was an old widower. Feeling ashamed, Zulaikhan didn't dare to refuse to marry him, then she indeed married him and later was brought to Egypt as a minister's wife. Years gone by but they didn't have any child yet. Once upon a time when they were travelling, they found a child named Yusuf who had been thrown into a well and even sold as a slave by his brothers. Zulaikha advised her husband to buy the slave and to treat him as an adopted child. Life went on and Yusuf grew as a handsome teenager taken care by Zulaikha. Zulaikha passionately interested in the very charming Yusuf, let also her husband had already very old.
Zulaikha's seductions were not successful, but according to the interpretation later Yusuf was imprisoned to protect good reputation of the minister's wife. After he had been imprisoned for years, the truth revealed itself.

Yusuf was declared to be not guilty, and Zulaikha admitted that she had been stuck on him. In brief, later Zulaikha's husband passed away. The king noticed that Yusuf had an extraordinary intelligence, so that he was later appointed to replace Zulaikha's husband as minister. Later, since Yusuf actually was also in love with Zulaikha, they married with each other. After Yusuf really becoming her husband, Zulaikha said, "This is the man I had seen in my dream when I was still a girl". Hence, Zulaikha's love had been inspired when Yusuf was still a child and Zulaikha hadn't known him.