Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 105
105 good. We should not punish or forgive in obedience to our impulses, but must exercise our judgment; and act according to the propriety of the occasion. It has been said in the Gospels that you should love your enemies, but the Holy Quran says to you that you should have no enemies in obedience to -your own desires, and that your sympathy should extend to all. Your enemies are only such as are the enemies of your God, your Prophet and the Word of God. Invite even these to the right' path and pray for them. To the individuals you should bear no enmity, but hate their evil deeds. Let all your efforts be" to reclaim these men and make them mend their ways. Thus it says. ^0 ; ftJ ) ^ 3 jjjj ) ; ^ IMA 5) ). j J C>*J (>j* b tfiJ ) ^) " Almighty God commands you to do justice, i. . , good for good, and further, to do good even to those who have done no good to you, and last of all to sympathise with, your fellow-beings with the kindness of kindred, with the kindness of a mother towards her child, for instance. ". The person who does goodness to another is apt to remind him sometfmes of the favor, and there some- times lies hidden under it a sort of vanity. But when goodness proceeds out of a natural 'desire for sympathy, no such infirmity accompanies it. Tnis is therefore, the highest stage of goodness. This verse, moreover, calls attention to our duties to the Creator. In connection with this part of our duties 'adl or justice is that as a recompense for the numerous blessings which He has besto- wed upon us, we ; should obey His commandments ; ihsan or good- ness consists in believing in Him with such a certainty as if we were actually seeing Him ; and ita-i-zilqurba or goodness, out of a natural desire is 'that He should be worshipped and obeyed neither for love of paradise nor for fear of hell, but even if the abodes of bliss and torture were-suppo&ed to be non-existent, there