veiled4allah: do not let hatred drive you to injustice

Hesham Hassaballa writes about The Most Profound Statement In The Qur'an. According to him (and I agree), this is probably:

Believers, stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others toward you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that you do

He writes:

No matter what has been done to you, God says, you are not allowed to commit injustice. The ends do not justify the means. There can never be a "free for all" against those who hurt us... ...The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) embodied this Divine principle with his actions toward the Meccans after the conquest of the Holy City. He asked the Meccans, "What do you think I am going to do with you?" They replied, "You are a noble brother, son of a noble brother." They were terrified, of course. The Prophet - being the Prophet - told them, "Go about your way in peace." When he heard his companion tell the Meccans, "Today is a day of slaughter! Today, God will abase Quraysh," he became very angry and said, "Today is a day of mercy! Today, God will honor Quraysh!" Never let the hatred of a people toward you move you to commit injustice.

Even before the conquest of Mecca, when the Muslims accidentally killed Amr ibn Al Hadrami during one of the Sacred Months, God did not condone injustice. After Amr was killed, Quraysh spread the rumor that the Prophet no longer held the Sacred Months as sacred. God sent down His reply: "They will ask thee about fighting in the sacred month. Say: 'Fighting in it is a big sin..." (2:217). God did not condone the slaying of Amr in the sacred month, despite the fact that the Muslims were unjustly expelled from Mecca, and the property of the Muslims left behind in Mecca was unjustly seized by the Meccans. Just because the Meccans declared all out war against the Muslims, that did not give them the right to kill them during the sacred months. Never let the hatred of a people toward you move you to commit injustice.

This principle also needs to be understood by we Americans. Despite what they did to us on September 11, it does not give us the right to kill innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan in revenge. It does not give us the right to torture detainees in Iraq or Afghanistan. It does not give our government the right to trample on the civil liberties of its citizens in the name of "fighting terrorism." Whenever I read about allegations of U.S. soldiers beating or killing Iraqi detainees - or even raping Iraqi women - in the back of my mind, I worry that these actions are being committed in revenge for 9/11. It must never be so. Never let the hatred of a people toward you move you to commit injustice.

This is not condoning the injustice committed against Muslims or the acts of terror inflicted upon Americans across the world. But, we can never let those ugly facts lead us to do wrong. As the Qur'an says, "Help ye one another in righteousness and piety, but help ye not one another in sin and rancour." If they kill our women and children, it does not give us the right to kill their women and children. This applies whether the "they" are Muslim terrorists or American soldiers. An "eye for an eye," is not appropriate here. We must always remember the words of 5:8: "never let the hatred of a people toward you move you to commit injustice." It is perhaps the most profound statement in all of the Qur'an.

This is a point that I've made before myself:

It makes me depressed and angry when I see Muslims who commit wrongs to further their causes. They should remember that any victory they might gain in the world that was not by means that God has allowed will be made void by God on Judgment Day, and that is no victory at all but the ultimate loss. The only way to gain true victory is to obey the limits that God has set. Even if a people have been wronged, they need to seek restitution in the right way and not commit further wrongs themselves.

I wish that more Muslims and also non-Muslims (see here) would remember this.