The distinction between loving others for their own sake versus cultivating relationships for personal benefit, the root of transactional favoritism.
Rabia revolutionized Islamic spirituality by insisting on pure devotion—loving God not for reward or from fear of punishment, but for God's own sake. This same principle illuminates favoritism: strategic attachment is when we favor people who benefit us, while neglecting those we deem less useful. This transactional approach corrupts relationships and communities, creating hierarchies of value based on utility rather than inherent worth. Pure devotion in relationships means showing up for people not because they enhance our status or offer advantage, but because they matter. When favoritism operates, it reveals that our attachments are strategic, conditional, conditional on what we gain. The cost is profound: we become enslaved to calculation, unable to trust our own generosity, and surrounded by others doing the same. Rabia's teaching invites us to examine our relationships honestly: whom do we favor, and why? True belonging emerges only when we release the expectation of return and love simply because love is the highest expression of being.
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