Yahweh's And Allah's Love

The deity of the Quran is neither totally different from the Biblical "Father," or Yahweh, nor totally similar.  What follows is only to put forth several similarities and contrast several differences between Christianity and Islam and not to treat the differences as some inherently obvious moral inferiority of Allah, who is distinctly not loving towards all people regardless of their deeds unlike Yahweh.  Though there is evidence that the Biblical religion is probably true and proof that Islam contradicts its own tenets elsewhere, each of these attributes of God is logically possible on their own, and to be or become a Christian because a degree of unconditional love is personally appealing, as it admittedly is for many Christians, is absolutely idiotic.  Love is only good if it corresponds to the divine nature, and so one cannot know love is good apart from that.  Otherwise, no matter how existentially satisfying or personally alluring it is, there is no basis for thinking love is good rather than sometimes appealing or useful.  Christians tend to start with this assumed premise.

Now, Allah's mercy is frequently referenced in the Quran, such as in Surah 2:159-160, 191-192, 3:89, and 4:175.  This is not at all an exhaustive list of relevant verses.  Mercy, being a withholding of justice when someone has already erred, does not require that one is loving prior to a person's repentance unless love is already morally owed to everyone, which is simply not true on the Islamic worldview.  According to Surah 4:107, "Do not argue for those who betray their own souls: God does not love anyone given to treachery and sin."  The verse before this says God is "most forgiving and merciful," as does verse 110 shortly after.  Mercy is not the same as love, so there is no actual contradiction in the doctrines proposed here.  However, Allah does not love everyone as long as there are people who are unrepentant by the standards of the Quran.  Surah 3:32 also says, just after mentioning divine forgiveness and mercy in 3:31, that God does not love those who ignore his commands.  Yet again, in Surah 3:140, it is clearly stated that "God does not love evildoers."  The Quran does not teach an all-loving God.

There is a difference between hating someone and not loving them.  Someone could both hate and not love another person or could hate and love them together, as well as love them without the additional presence of hatred.  Allah's love is very explicitly conditional in the Quran, whereas the love of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 10:17-18, John 3:16, Romans 5:8), though sometimes accompanied by hatred that is denied by many assumption-making Christians (as mentioned in verses like Leviticus 20:23, Psalm 5:5-6, 11:5, Proverbs 11:20), is constant, universally directed, and such that he was willing to do more than just accept repentant sinners.  He is willing to have his Son die for them (again, Romans 5:8), something Jesus was resolved to submit to because it was the Father's will (Luke 22:42).  The differing (but sometimes rather overlapping) doctrines on the nature of Jesus aside, Yahweh and Allah, though presented as the same being at least up to a point in the Quran, have exclusive qualities.

The Quran, as anyone who reads both it and the Bible without making assumptions can see, is not a book wholly contrary to Christian philosophy as many have heard.  The differences there are still no minor thing, spanning everything from criminal justice to the nature of hell to the ontology of Christ to the love of God.  Love is not the only part of Christian ethics in that it is vague and incomplete on its own, and just as crucially, the love demanded by the Bible is not shallow, subjective, emotionalistic affection, but a commitment to treating people as they deserve as image bearers of God no matter one's circumstances.  According to many Christians, Biblical love is in conflict with the very deeds demanded in the Torah that the Pentateuch and gospels alike say are loving (Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37-40), so they are obviously believing an impossible contradiction.  It is just that goodness is either way grounded in God, and since the Quran repeatedly says Allah does not love people unconditionally, love is not a universal requirement in Islam.  It is owed to the righteous because God loves them and to show it otherwise is an optional mercy.