Gabriella,
A thought. I am interested to know what the Qur'an says about love. The New Testament is very specific, love being the guiding principle. Unconditional love for your fellow man is not an explicit teaching of the Qur'an. Or, if it is, it is not prominent. If you are a Muslim, please suggest some verses, but please limit it to the actual Qur'an.
I don't think the Quran advocates unconditional love for your fellow man - I could be wrong but my impression from reading the Quran is that it doesn't emphasise love - it emphasises doing good deeds, being kind, merciful, humble and just - but I don't think there is any requirement for unconditional love. So people forgive others as an act of mercy or compassion or by being humble enough to be aware of their own failings because that is considered good and also out of love for Allah.
I have to say - the whole unconditional love thing doesn't really do anything for me.
May I ask why?
I am not sure if my reason makes any sense but I think it is because I don't value love unless I have to earn it through words or deeds. I find it unfathomable that someone should love me regardless of how I act. Also I don't think I have a capacity to love unconditionally. Even as a parent, I have a maternal instinct, whereby I would protect my children from harm without worrying about the cost to me, but I am not sure I love them unconditionally - not sure what loving them unconditionally means. I can imagine situations where I would want nothing to do with them unless they made amends e.g. if they deliberately and cruelly hurt someone else.
I suppose it depends on the definition of love. If it is defined as just recognising someone as a fellow human being, wishing someone well without any depth to it, I guess I am ok with that.
Jesus is quite explicit: : 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these: Mark 12:31
And all people are our neighbours.
In the Good Samaritan , Jesus explained that we should consider all the people of the world to be our "neighbours." The Jews and Samaritans were peoples of a different race, different nationality, and rival religions. They had despised each other for hundreds of years and did not even speak. But, as we know, in the parable, a Samaritan man stopped to help an injured Jewish man and spent his time and money to give him the best care he possibly could. In the conclusion of the parable, Jesus says to, "Go and do thou likewise."
Further more, enemies are neighbours, too, hard though it may be to accept that. Just as God loves all His people, so should we. Jesus calls us to extend our love even to our enemies! "You have heard it said, in times of old, "Love your neighbour and hate your enemy." But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax-collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Paul said that Christian love is the greatest and most essential of all the spiritual gifts. Even faith is worthless without love: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
Paul summed up Love in this famous passage: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
The Christian message is about love, all-encompassing love. It's a difficult ask, we are only human; but if you do not aim high, you will never reach the heights.
