assalamu alaykum,
Fear and love for Allah subhana wa ta’ala go hand in hand. We fear that Allah may justly punish us because we know that He (SWT) has the power to do so and this makes us work harder to escape from Allah’s punishment. Similarly, we love Allah SWT because He has created us and given us all the blessings that we have and we know that if fulfill the purpose of our creation by worshipping Him SWT to the best of our ability, then He SWT will reward us beyond imagination out of His SWT’s infinite Mercy and Compassion.
At least that is how I understand it.
Allahu A’lam

It’s brother.

Thank you for your comments that made me re-read the quote by Rabia. I’m not sure I used it in its proper context. She doesn’t say anything about love or fear of Allah, only about detaching herself from love or fear of heaven and hell, which seems to be similar to what Sister Yasmin said in her article “Attachments: Emptying the Vessel” at http://www.virtualmosque.com/islam-studies/personaldvlpt/attachments-emptying-the-vessel/ As she wrote,

“This struggle to free one’s heart from all false attachments, the struggle to empty the vessel of the heart, is the greatest struggle of earthly life. That struggle is the essence of tawheed (true monotheism).”

Even so, I wonder how one maintains both love and fear toward the same entity and what is the exact meaning of love and fear with respect to Allah. When I think of coming home after work and my daughter racing toward me, hugging me, and saying, “I love you, daddy,” there is no fear, only love. Fear arises only when she has done something seriously wrong and some consequence may be forthcoming. And hope comes after fear, that is, hope of being accepted again into a relationship of love.

I’m not sure that love of family is the same type of love that one should have for Allah as being a Muslim means complete submission and obedience to Allah. And perhaps it’s a different type of fear, too. Perhaps someone else can go into this into more detail.

brother/sister,

I humbly believe that this quote by rabia is not correct and does not represent the teachings of Islam. The sahaba worshipped Allah out of fear of Hell and Desire of Paradise. The believer’s attitude is that he worships Allah out of love hope and fear, not just love or hope or fear.

May Allah bless you

Now I know what to develop in myself to attain taqwa.

“O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”