[2:165] Yet there be people who take to themselves compeers besides God, loving them as God is loved;
These are people whom the Real (s) did not appoint as the people of love (ahl al-maḥabba). He kept them occupied with the love of other things so that they were satisfied with loving everything that their lower selves desired. They were satisfied with something made for them to worship, and something other than Him carved for them to love.
[2:165 cont'd] but those who believe love God more ardently; If he were to see those who did evil, when they see the chastisement, that the might altogether belongs to God, and that God is terrible in chastisement.
What is intended here is not to recall the idol worshippers' love for other things, but rather to praise the believers for their love. The need is not for you to increase your love so as to surpass the love of disbelievers for their idols. Rather the lover wants to remember his beloved as much as he can and finds everything that comes from the beloved beautiful.
It is said the reason for the superiority of the love of believers for God over the love of the disbelievers for their idols is that the latter love is from like to like, and it is expected that like will incline to like. But [the love of believers for God] is a love of One who is not like them, and that is more precious and more worthy.
It is said that [the disbelievers] love what they can see and there is nothing amazing about loving that which has been seen with one's own eyes. But the believers love the One who has comes in between them and their seeing, a cloak of grandeur on their faces.
It is said those who believe love God more ardently because they do not dissociate themselves from God even if He punishes them. The disbeliever dissociates himself from the idol and the idol from the disbeliever, just as God Most High said, 'When those who were followed disown their followers' [2:166].
It is said the love (maḥabba) of the believers comes from the love of God for them, for that is more perfect. God Most High said, 'whom He loves and who love Him' [5:54], while their love for idols is a matter of whim (hawā).
It is said the love of the believers is more perfect and more ardent because it conforms to the command, while the love of the disbelievers conforms to whim (hawā) and human nature (?abʿ). It is said that when their circumstances were prosperous and their wealth and influence wide, they adopted idols which were better than those they worshipped in their previous state of poverty. They used to adopt idols of silver when they were rich and abandon those of iron - this was how they measured things! For the believers, the ardency of their love for God was because they worshipped One God in good times and bad.