It is a ḥāl (spiritual state). In this maqām (spiritual station), there is joy and glad tidings.
A certain person says: I am astonished by a creature who seeks a price! I am astonished at how he finds intimacy with that which is other than God (mā siwā)!
Junayd says: The signs of the perfection of love are these: to remember Him with joy in the qalb (the heart) continuously, to feel delight and longing for Him, to attain intimacy (uns) with Him, to prefer Him over loving one's own nafs (the lower self), and to show riḍā (contentment with God's decree) with everything He does. The sign of having attained intimacy with Allah is to take pleasure in solitude, to savor supplication, and to devote oneself to intimacy to such an extent that one cannot even think of the world and what is in it. This state is not to be interpreted as intimacy with people, and it should be regulated within reasonable bounds. Love (maḥabba) is not to be interpreted as love for created beings. If it were so, it would encompass thoughts, for longing (shawq) is also a state of thought. Shawq is to seek presence with the Beloved, to find warmth in Him, to taste from Him, to feel comfort in Him, and to find life in Him. (Kūt, TI, 64)
True love (ʿishq-i ḥaqīqī) is to take pleasure in imagining that a certain person is present with one at this moment. Shawq, on the other hand, is to act in order to complete this joy. The form can be represented in the imagination from one perspective, just as it can be represented; from another perspective, it cannot be represented. Similarly, it is agreed that, in relation to a sensory matter, until the entire sensory representation is realized, it cannot be represented in sensation. (That is, unless something is perceived by the senses, it cannot be conceived in the mind; for something to be perceived by the senses, it is necessary that it has at least once been perceived by the senses.) Each