Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 14
14 and mercy but the vein of justice runs through its pages, and its object is also to put a restraint upon undue. cruelty and vindictive- ness. Such is not the object of the Gospel. It lays stress upon forgiveness and forbearance. . The reason of this is not far to seek. The Jews had carried to excess the doctrine of retaliation taught by the Mosaic Law, and instead of kindness and fellow- feeling, rancor and spite had grown. up in their hearts. The teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is evidently addressed to a, people whom the speaker knows to be men of a rancorous and vindictive nature and whom he wishes to instruct in the high moral qualities of kindness ; patience, forbearance and forgiveness fj to which they are utter strangers. Hence the propriety of the teachings of Moses and Jesus is unquestionable though it cannot be v denied that both doctrines were like special or local laws and from their very nature unsuitable for permanent and universal adop- tion. The true and universal law was revealed in the Holy Quran which abrogated all previous laws. Any one who enters into the spirit of the Holy book and goes to the depth of its true significance, will clearly see that the Quran has neither laid v/ -stress upon strict vengeance as the. . Mosaic Law did in its doct- rine of retaliation and its battle, nor has it gone to the opposite extreme by emphasising absolute and unqualified forgiveness of all injuries, but adopts the middle path by enjoining that which is right and forbidding that which is wrong. It required us to do that which is right both according to reason and law, and to refrain from doing what reason and law do not permit. The laws and injunctions of the Quran do not therefore, relate to particular, actions but lay down general rules for a right course of conduct. It does not for instance tell us to take an eye for an eye in every case or to forgive injury however evil its conse- quences may be, but tells us to apply our reason and judgment