A practical reframing of love as a deliberate practice of just action, removing the excuse that favoritism results from authentic emotion or natural preference.
Rabia distinguished between love as sentiment (which is reactive and selective) and love as disciplined practice (which is chosen and universal). She prayed to God not from desire for reward but from unconditional commitment. This distinction exposes a modern myth: that favoritism is natural and inevitable because we "feel" closer to some people. But if love is a practice, favoritism becomes a choice we make, often unconsciously. When we treat it as emotion beyond our control, we abdicate responsibility for its consequences. Rabia's model invites us to notice the stories we tell: "I naturally favor my own child," "I'm drawn to people like me," "I can't help but invest in talented people." These stories may contain truth about human tendency, but they obscure our capacity for deliberate, countervailing practice. The cost of treating favoritism as inevitable feeling is that we never develop the discipline to act justly across all relationships. By treating love as a cultivated discipline, we reclaim agency and the possibility of transformation.
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