Ibn al-Arabi has dedicated a complete chapter of his Futuhat al-Makkiya to love, which has been translated by Maurice Gloton as Trait de LAmour (ISBN 2-226-02715-7).
He describes 3 types of love (pp. 67-127):
1. Divine love
2. Spiritual love
3. Natural love.
For those not knowing Arabic or French Stephen Hirtenstein has described these 3 types of love in his The Unlimited Mercifier (ISBN 1-883991-29-3). See pp. 191-203. A condensed description with all the major features of the exposition of the shaykh is given on pp. 194-195:
Know that Love is according to three degrees. (Firstly) there is natural love, which is the love of ordinary people, whose aim is unification in the animal spirit It ends in the act of physical union, in which the passion of love spreads through the whole body like water permeating wool, or rather, like the permeation of colour in the coloured.
(Secondly) there is spiritual love of the soul, whose aim is becoming like the Beloved, accomplishing what is the Beloveds due and knowing His decree.
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