Love Thy Enemy
by Muhammad Abdulla
The Light (Pakistan), 1st July 1922 Issue (Vol. 1, No. 14, p. 3)
“Love thy Enemy”
is the lip word of every Christian missionary and it resounds from every pulpit, but when we turn over the pages of the Church history, to our utter disappointment we fail to find it enacted in the very lines of these great professors. Even Jesus himself could not leave a practical example for his followers.
The history of Christendom abounds with the instances which go to prove that the Christians have invariably run mad to cut one another’s throat for worldly interest. The late Great War is a typical illustration of it.
The fact is that as all other laws of Moses have failed to keep pace with the growing needs of humanity at large, so has been the fate of this very enactment. The Holy Quran, which professes to be the perfect code of laws for the whole of humanity and for all ages, gives it in a somewhat modified form. To put it in the words of the 14th century Reformer [Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian], I give below an extract from his writings.
“Ye (Christians) were told to love your enemies, but I teach you (according to Islam) that you must have no personal or selfish enmity.
Let your enmities be for the sake of God, His Prophet [pbuh], and His Book, and although you pray for such an enemy and seek guidance for him, you must not love his doing nor tolerate it, but you must destroy it as quickly as it is in your power, and clean the world of evil. Be you the well-wisher of the evildoer, but be then the enemy of evil.
It is neither wise nor salutary to forgive on all occasions. The recompense of evil is evil like into it, except where you see that by forgiveness you can effect more good than by punishing, in which case forgive and punish not.”
Muslim history is full of practical instances which go to prove beyond doubt that the Muslims really loved their enemies.