The Essence of Islam – Volume I — Page 14
must be warm, then equally we would be liable to some other kind of disease. Consequently, in order to maintain our physical health we must keep a balance between hot and cold, hard and soft, and movement and rest. We should follow the same rule in respect of our spiritual health. God has bestowed no evil faculty upon us. Indeed no faculty is evil in itself; it is the misuse of a faculty that is evil. For instance, envy is evil but if we use it for a good purpose, that is to say, as a competition in goodness, it becomes a high moral quality. The same is the case with all moral qualities. Their misuse renders them harmful and their use on proper occasion in a moderate manner makes them beneficial. . It is, therefore, a mistake to cut off all other branches of the tree of humanity and to put the entire emphasis on forgiveness and forbearance. That is why this teaching has failed in its purpose and Christian sovereigns had to enact codes of law for the punishment of offenders. The current Gospels cannot bring about the perfection of the human self. As the stars are dimmed when the sun rises and then disappear from sight altogether, the same is the case of the Gospel in comparison with the Holy Qur'ān. [Kitāb-ul-Bariyyah, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, Vol. 13, pp. 66-67]. A study of the religions of the world reveals that every religion, except Islām, contains some mistake or the other. This is not because they were all false in their origin, but because after the advent of Islām, God gave up the support of other religions. They became like neglected gardens, which had no gardener to look after them, and for the irrigation and upkeep of which no arrangement had been made, so that gradually they began to decay. Their fruit-bearing trees became dry and barren,