News at Eleven: As stated in the Qur'an (5: 54),

God loves a people and they love him. Rumi in fact alludes to a famous tradition--"I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known, so I created the creation to be known"--explaining love as the underlying motivation for God's creation:

Were it not for the ocean of pure love
What reason would I have to forge the heavens?
Masnavi 5: 2739

Rumi even seems to posit love as the primal element of creation, a vital force that stirs the universe and creates the noosphere (to borrow a term from Teilhard de Chardin):

from The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 5: On love
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 4: Rumi's Sufism
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 3: Knowledge and certainty
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 2: Under the surface
also The Guardian: Rumi's Masnavi, part 1: World figure or new age fad?

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