of joy and sorrow and similar experiences arise from the feeling of what is beloved or the feeling of what is disliked, and the feeling itself is neither joy nor sorrow. Thus, the sweetness of faith, which includes the pleasure and joy found by the believer who experiences the sweetness of faith, depends on the perfection of the servant's love for Allāh, which involves three matters: perfecting this love, differentiating it, and repelling its opposite. Perfecting it means that Allāh and His Messenger are more beloved to him than anything else, for the love of Allāh and His Messenger is not satisfied by mere basic love; rather, Allāh and His Messenger must be more beloved to him than anything else, as previously mentioned. Differentiating it means that a person loves another only for the sake of Allāh, and repelling its opposite means that he detests the opposite of faith more than he detests being thrown into the fire. When the love for the Messenger and the believers stems from the love of Allāh, and the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) loves the believers whom Allāh loves because he is the most complete of people in love for Allāh and the most deserving of loving what Allāh loves and hating what Allāh hates. As for intimate friendship, it is reserved solely for Allāh, as he said: "If I were to take an intimate friend from the people of the earth, I would have taken Abū Bakr as an intimate friend," indicating the higher status of intimate friendship over general love. The intended meaning is that intimate friendship and love for Allāh fulfill servitude to Him, and the mistake of those who err in this matter comes from their assumption that servitude is merely humiliation and submission without love, and that love involves..