Naming the Beloved in Each Person

Rabia's poetry and prayers speak to the Beloved—God—with startling intimacy, as if addressing a specific, beloved person. This relational stance transformed her experience of existence itself. The practice of naming the Beloved in each encounter has profound implications for dismantling favoritism. When we see someone only as a means to an end, a competitor, or a category (the popular one, the struggling one, the useful one), we objectify them and make favoritism possible. Favoritism requires that we see people as instruments of our goals rather than as sacred subjects deserving of respect. By practicing the naming of the Beloved—by recognizing the irreplaceable, specific, holy essence in each person—we make favoritism feel like a violation of something sacred. This is not sentimentality; it is a deliberate practice of perception. In families, it means calling forth the unique gifts and essence of each child, not the role we assigned them. In organizations, it means seeing each worker as a person with intrinsic worth, not a replaceable resource. The cost of favoritism includes the forgetting of who people truly are; the practice of naming the Beloved restores that remembrance.