Self-Love and Comparison of it with Egoism

Self-love is a normative theory which tries to present quite general ethical principles which are in fact the ethical base of all human's attitudes. According to Islam's teachings and the Islamic scholar's statements, all human beings have the nature of self-love and their personal attitudes are based on this instinct. Since human's essence is pure, has rational potentialities and ideals, and is based on the Divine nature and moves towards the real felicity, therefore acting according to self-love is desirable and should be performed and acting against it is undesirable and should not be performed. Although the theory of self-love appears to be similar with "ethical egoism", but it has radical differences in its ontological, anthropological and epistemological bases; therefore the criticisms made to the theory of "ethical egoism" such as: incompatibility with humanitarian deeds, self-sacrifice, mother's affection, mystical prayer and … can be replied in this theory.