Assalaamu alaykum. Can I call someone ‘my love’? Also, the word ‘Jani’ means life in my language, can I call someone with that, and also, can I say that I won a match because of a person's match-winning performance, or do I have to say, “I won because of Allah”? Also, why do we call Allah the ‘Greatest’? If there is no one great around us, then why do we call him the ‘Greatest’?

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

There is no harm on you in calling someone ‘my love’ or ‘my life’ provided that it would not lead to Fitnah (temptation), as is the case with a non-Mahram (marriageable) woman, who is not someone you address in such a manner. The Islamic Shariah instructs us to block the means that lead to evil results. The Shaafiʻi scholars held that it is prohibited for a Muslim woman to be the one who greets a non-Mahram man first or return his greeting, and they held that it is disliked for a Muslim man to be the one who greets a non-Mahram woman first. They explained the difference in the ruling as follows: when a woman returns the greeting of a non-Mahram man or greets him first, it might encourage him to covet her.

Regarding winning the match, if the mentioned person's performance was a reason for winning the match, there is no harm in crediting him for it while believing that Allah, the Exalted, is the One Who causes all things to happen. Shaykh Ibn ʻUthaymeen underlined in his commentary on the hadeeth that reads, “Had your people not been new converts to Islam, I would have done that,” saying, “If a person attributes an action to its worldly cause without mentioning Allah, the Exalted, it is still true and valid and permissible. Here is the Prophet, sallallahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, saying about his uncle Abu Taalib, ‘Were it not for me, he would have been at the bottom of Hellfire,’ although he, sallallahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is only a reason, and he is not the one who saved his uncle from being at the bottom of Hellfire.”

The Arabic word Akbar and the like of elative forms used to describe Allah, the Exalted, is intended to indicate the perfection of His respective attribute or highlight the dissimilarity between the perfect attribute of Allah and that of His creation (emphasizing that none of His creation is like Him as far as the respective attribute is concerned). Abu Al-Baqaa’ Al-Kafawi wrote:

“The elative form could be used to denote the perfection and superlative nature of His particular description (attribute) even if the original description is not shared with any other entity. For instance, when they (Arabs) say, ‘Summer is colder than winter,’ they mean that summer is more perfect in its heat than winter in its cold. It could also mean that the one who carries this attribute transcends all others in it, not in the sense that he exceeds others after joining them in the origin of the action (its basic form). Rather, it is in the sense that he transcends the origin of the action and is closer to its perfection (its ultimate form). This is the clearest meaning when the superlative forms are used in reference to Allah, the Exalted, pertaining to the divine attributes that are exclusive to Him, such as the case with ‘Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest)’.” [Al-Kulliyyaat]

This is not intended as a comparison between the Creator and the created.

Allah knows best.