THE FOURTH WORD OR CURE

 

What is most fitting for and worthy of love is love, and what is most worthy of hostility is hostility. That is, the attribute of love, which enables a happy human social life, most deserves love; while hostility, which ruins human social life, is an ugly, harmful attribute most deserving of hostility and hatred.

The time of hostility has come to an end. The two world wars have shown how evil and devastatingly wrong hostility can be. It is manifestly clear that evil has not the least benefit for humankind. For this reason, unless evil acts are in the form of aggression, such acts on the part of our enemies should not drive us to hostility. Hell or God’s punishment is enough for them.

Arrogance and selfishness sometimes wrongly lead believers to feel hostility toward their brothers or sisters-in-religion. Even though they may see themselves as rightful, hostility toward believers means belittling the powerful reasons for loving them, such as belief, being Muslim, and a fellow human. This is paramount to lunacy; preferring the pebble-sized reasons for hostility over mountain-sized reasons of love. That is, the reasons for love are the luminous, powerful chains and the spiritual castles such as belief, being Muslim, and being human, while the reasons for hostility toward believers are no more than pebbles. Therefore, hostility toward believers is as great a wrong as disparaging the mountain-like reasons for love.

In short: Brother/sisterhood and love are the characteristics of Islam and of bonds between Muslims. The people of hostility are like mischievous children, who desire to cry and therefore seek a reason to cry. They make a thing that is as petty as the wing of a fly a pretext for crying. They are also like an unfair, pessimistic man who does not have a good opinion of others as long as it is possible to have an ill opinion. He covers ten instances or acts of good with a single evil. As Islamic characteristics, fairness and the rule of having a good opinion of others counter this attitude.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi