In the book entitled Love of God: Making God One's Supreme Concern, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan writes that the strongest human feeling or emotion is that of love. When man makes something his supreme concern, it naturally happens that a feeling of love becomes associated with that thing. In religious terminology, this is called “deification”. The thing one loves the most is one’s deity (mabud), whether or not one utters this word.
Faith in God is for man to discover God to the extent of loving Him more than anything else. The Quran says that “those who believe love God most.” (2:165) One who loves God the most is one who has made God his object of worship.
Belief in God begins with the discovery of God. In the Quran this discovery is called maarifah. Maarifah, or realization of God, in the real sense, becomes a part and parcel of one’s existence. When this happens, all those high and noble manifestations expressed in such words as love, gratitude and remembrance of God come into evidence.