Abstract

This paper attempts to study the influence of Islamic mystical love as
reflected in Sawāneh-al-Oshshāq (Aphorisms in Love) by the 11/12th
century Sufi author, Ahmad Al-Ghazzāli on Christian mystical love as
reflected in The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, a famous treatise
on love in the Middle Ages, by the 13th century Catalan priest and
writer, Ramon Llull. Llull in one of his works points out that, in the
manner of the prayers by mystic Moslems, he intends to produce a
similar work but he does not clarify the main inspiring source(s) of his.
The author of the present study believes that the similarities between
Llull and Al-Ghazzāli is beyond fortuity and concludes that in all
probability the latter has been the main semi-acknowledged influence
on the genesis and development of the former and that Llull's work has
been a free translation of Sawāneh with some smattering of Christianity.
The paper aims to study the similarities and differences in mystical
love, as a platform to unite human beings, in the Islamic and Christian
faiths.

Keywords

• Ahmad al-Ghazzāli
• Ramon Llull
• Comparison of Islamic and Christian love
• Sawāneh
• The Book of the Lover and the Beloved
• Mystical Love