BROTHERHOOD IN ISLAM

The Twenty-Second Letter

This treatise calls believers to brotherhood and love.

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحٖيمِIn the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

اِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ اِخْوَةٌ فَاَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَ اَخَوَيْكُمْThe believers are brothers, so make peace between them. – The Quran 49:10

اِدْفَعْ بِالَّتٖى هِىَ اَحْسَنُ فَاِذَا الَّذٖى بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُ عَدَاوَةٌ كَاَنَّهُ وَلِىٌّ حَمٖيمٌRepel evil with what is better, and then the one between whom and you there was enmity will become as though he were a devoted friend. – The Quran 41:34

وَالْكَاظِمٖينَ الْغَيْظَ وَالْعَافٖينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ وَاللّٰهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنٖينَThose who restrain their anger and forgive people; and Allah loves those who do good. – The Quran 3:134

Partisanship, obstinacy, and envy—which give rise to discord, division, resentment, and enmity among believers—are ugly, blameworthy, harmful, and unjust from the standpoint of truth, wisdom, Islam (the highest expression of humanity), personal life, social life, and spiritual life. Indeed, they are a poison to human life itself. Of the many aspects of this truth, we shall explain six.

The First Aspect

It is unjust from the standpoint of truth.

O unreasonable and unjust person who harbours hatred and enmity toward a believer! Suppose that you are on a ship or in a house together with nine innocent people and one criminal. If someone were to try to sink that ship or set that house on fire because of that criminal, you know how great an injustice that would be. You would cry out against such oppression with such intensity that your protest would seem to reach the heavens. Even if there were only one innocent person and nine criminals aboard, it would still violate every principle of justice to sink that ship or burn down that house.

Likewise, a believer is like a divinely sustained house or ship containing not merely nine but perhaps twenty innocent qualities, such as īmānFaith; belief in the six articles of faith: Allah, His angels, His revealed scriptures, His prophets, the Hereafter, and divine decree (qadar)., Islam, and good neighbourliness. Would it not be merciless and abhorrent to harbour hatred and enmity toward such a believer because of a single quality that displeases you or causes you harm? Would that not amount, figuratively, to setting that spiritual house ablaze and destroying it, or wrecking and sinking that spiritual ship?

The Second Aspect

It is unjust from the standpoint of wisdom as well.

It is well known that love and hatred, like light and darkness, are opposites that cannot truly coexist in their essential nature.

When genuine love resides in a person’s heart, enmity loses its reality and is transformed into compassion. Indeed, a believer loves his brother and ought to love him. Toward his faults, he feels only compassion. He does not approach his brother with domination, but seeks to reform him through kindness and goodwill. For this reason, the following is commanded in a hadithA report of the sayings, actions, or approvals of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh).: “A believer should not remain angry with another believer and refuse to speak to him for more than three days.”