Malfuzat - Volume VII — Page 91
29 December 1904 91 those seeds or not?’ In other words, those seeds became the cause for leading him to Islam. It is also mentioned in the Hadith that a Companion asked the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, that, ‘I had spent a lot [in charity] during the [pre-Islamic] Days of Ignorance, will I be rewarded for it?’ The Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, replied that it was the result of that charity that he had become a Muslim. 1 This shows that God Almighty does not waste even the most insignificant act of sincerity belonging to anyone. And it also proves that compassion and care for the creation of God lead to safeguarding Allah’s rights. Thus, compassion for God’s creatures is so vital a quality that if man abandons it and moves away from it, he gradually becomes a wild beast. The humanity of man demands this, and a man remains a man only so long as he acts with i h s a n [benev- olence], civility, and kindness towards his other brother, and there is no discrimination in this regard, as said by Sa‘d i : �یگ�رادن ینب آدم ااضعےئ �یک د [Human beings are limbs of each other. ] Remember, in my view, the scope of compassion is very vast indeed; do not exclude any nation or individual from it. I do not want to say, like the ignorant people of today, that you should limit your sympathy only to Muslims. No, I say you should show compassion to the whole of God’s creation regard- less of who they are—be they Hindu or Muslim or anyone else. I never approve of the statements of people who want to limit sympathy exclusively to their own people. Some of them even 1. S a hih al-Bukh a r i , Kit a buz-Zak a h, B a b man-Ta s addaqa f i as-Shirk Thumma Aslama, Hadith 1436 [Publisher]