The word ishq is derived from ashiqa. The ashiqa is a creeper called liblab in Arabic and ishq-pechan in Persian. When this creeper twines itself around a tree, it deprives it of its leaves and fruits. The tree turns yellow and a few days later dries up. Similarly, when love takes its root in the heart of a lover, every one other than the beloved is effaced in the effulgence of the beloved's beauty; the very being of the lover is annihilated and there remains nothing save the beloved.

Another word for love is mahabbat, which is said to have derived from hibbat, which are a kind of seeds that fall to the earth in the desert. The name hubb (love) was given to such desert seeds (hibb) because love is the source of life just as seeds are the origin of plants. When the seeds are scattered in the desert, they became hidden in the earth, and rain falls upon them and sun shines upon them, and cold and heat pass over them, yet they are not corrupted by the changing seasons, but grow up and bear flowers and give fruit, so love, when it takes its dwelling in the heart, is not corrupted by presence or absence, by pleasure or pain, by separation or union. Others says that mahabbat is derived from hubb, meaning a jar full of stagnant water because when love is kindled in heart and fills it, there is no room there for any thought except of the beloved. Others also claim that mahabbat is derived from hubb meaning the four conjoined pieces of wood (on which a water-jug is placed), because a lover lightly bears whatever his beloved metes out to him.