| THE UNBELIEVERS’ HOSTILITY
Throughout history, Allah’s messengers have been made responsible for conveying His message to their people as well as enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. In times when there are no prophets among the people, believers who have a strong and sincere faith have taken it upon themselves to perform these tasks in order to earn Allah’s good pleasure, mercy, and Paradise. However, throughout history, such people have been subjected to verbal and physical abuse and often threatened with death. Since they have no worldly ambition, they do not approach anyone out of self-interest. On the contrary, they are selfless, modest, and humble. However, they still face hostility and attacks from some people. Allah reveals the identity of these people in the Qur’an, and explains why they do what they do by providing examples from the past.
The Qur’an reveals that the underlying reason for this hostility is their hostility toward Allah and His religion. Due to their vanity, they do not want to acknowledge the existence of the All-Powerful Creator Who created them, gave them life when they were nothing, and then sustained them with endless means of sustenance. They choose denial because of their zeal for life and preference of this world over the Hereafter, and because they seek to escape the responsibility that believing in Allah’s religion will bring upon them. They do not wish to feel answerable to anyone and so ignore the fact that one day they will be brought to justice for their evil, immoral, and sinful deeds. For these reasons, they perceive all who remind them of Allah, His religion, and the Day of Judgment as their enemy.
As a consequence of this hostility, they either try to hinder the believers or try to force them to return to their former religion. As we learn from the Qur’an, people who are far removed from the Qur’an’s morality use various methods to achieve their ambitions. For example, they plot, scheme, and conspire against believers; torture them; and try to hurt them with mockery or slander. By slandering believers, they try to derail them and wear them down. Allah reveals that such hostile efforts have never succeeded:
If they come upon you, they will be your enemies and stretch out their hands and tongues against you with evil intent. They would dearly love [for] you to become unbelievers. (Surat al-Mumtahana, 2)
The source of the slanders examined in this book is those who, in the words of the Qur’an, “stretch out their hands and tongues against believers with evil intent.” Over the coming pages, we will see that slander, which has been handed down from generation to generation over thousands of years as if it were an inheritance, is the method used by those who wish to spread immorality and disorder in the world. It is used against religious, sincere, and moral people, as in the cases of Prophets Nuh (as), Sulayman (as), Musa (as), Muhammad (saas), and every messenger in between, not to mention all of the devout people who were with them. In recent history, the great scholar Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was subjected to this type of bullying as well.
However, no slanderer in history, including Pharaoh and Nimrod, has ever achieved his or her goal, and neither have the people who sought to hurt the loved ones of our Prophet (saas) by slandering them. Allah has always cleared His righteous servants of the suspicions cast on them, as we learn in the account of Musa (as):
O you who believe! Do not be like those who abused Musa. Allah absolved him of what they said, and he was highly honored with Allah. O you who believe! Fear [and respect] Allah, and speak the right word. (Surat al-Ahzab, 69-70)
Just as all past slanderers against Muslims met with no success, they will not succeed either today or in the future. |
