COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LOVE: EXPLORING THE NOTION OF 'ISHQ' IN SUFI THOUGHT AND ITS INTERPLAY IN EASTERN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES

At the zenith of human connections resides the profound emotion of love, a subject that has captured the attention of countless thinkers throughout history. In particular, a comparative exploration of the insights offered by Western and Eastern scholars sheds light on the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon. This article centers on analyzing the contrasting perspectives on love articulated by these scholars. Indeed, the discourse surrounding love has been a longstanding theme in global literature and philosophy. Love as a problem and as a mystery is in the sphere of interests of thinkers and scientists representing different fields of knowledge. As a rule, however, the subject of research is not the feeling of love itself, which occupies a large place in a person’s existence, but phenomena that are in one way or another connected with this feeling (the term “sensation” in this case is used with some convention). Love remains a subject not so much of philosophical thought as of art, as a sphere in which the objective is subordinated to the subjective and in which the conceptual apparatus characteristic of philosophy is absent as such. Meanwhile, philosophy that studies man cannot help but notice love not just as a psychological, psycho-physical phenomenon, but also as an ontological phenomenon inherent in being. In this case, love is understood as the result of the relationship between several aspects of a person’s life.