How to Forgive!

During the initial years of Islam, the believers were outcast from the Meccan society and, worse, they were occasionally tortured to death. This systematic oppression against the believers, while the number of believers in Medina grew, led to a exodus that changed the history. In many books on the topic, various aspects are told, but here, I would like to discuss a psychological aspect of the migration from Mecca to Medina.

It is known that, except a few, the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) never returned to Mecca for good. They may have visited their city of birth for family visits, or trade or on state duty, but they did not move back. When we think about the psychology of these people, we can see a human dimension at work.

The believers were outcast, tortured, ripped of their wealth and family only because they had believed in the message brought by Prophet Muhammad. This unjust treatment, most naturally, breaks the human heart in the deepest sense. This break not only causes emotional pain stress but also creates a growing separation and polarization between the oppressors and the oppressed. This state of the human psyche demands "eye for an eye" in order to quench (9/13-15); just like the action-reaction principle in physics. But what if you are discouraged from that, and instead, you are asked to forgive?

"Who spend [in the cause of Allah ] during ease and hardship and who restrain anger and who pardon the people - and Allah loves the doers of good" (3/134)

Forgiving, in general, is not easy, because it requires the human ego to step back from its rightful claims. Still, depending on the level of violation of the rights, forgiving has different levels of hardship. For example, it may be relatively easy to forgive when your friend loses a book that they had borrowed from you, but forgiving someone who subjected you or your loved ones to physical pain, injury or loss or who has ripped you off your freedom for an unjust reason is really really difficult. This difficulty is so great that it is invisible to the conscious eye of the individual. Let me explain what I mean by this.

I had started my discussion with the example of the early Muslims, so let's continue with them. Upon encouragement from the prophet and following the highlighted virtues in the Quran, the companions of the prophet may have chosen not to retaliate against the Meccans for the injustices of the past. However, even if you consciously choose such a way, your psyche never forgets who did what, and where it happened. Places, smells, faces, words remind you of that painful past. Even if you consciously bury those years into the crevices of your brain, they still exist there and live subliminally. In order not to fall prey to the schemes of those memories, you must avoid anything that stimulates them.

"... and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do." (5/8)

This active state to avoid stimuli is exactly a depiction of the believers who migrated to Medina and stayed there until end of their lives. Similar is the situation of the prophet when he told Wakhshi (the murderer of Hamza, uncle of the prophet, but who later became Muslim) to not seem to Him in order to avoid any mishaps or upsetting feelings. If you continue reading the early Islamic history, you see a major lack of sensitivity towards "avoiding the triggers", which prepared the psychological grounds for dreadful conflicts among the Muslims. Even today, the unjust treatments of the Muslims by the Muslims still continues, and it seems that it is going to stay as such until the end of time. Otherwise, why would the Merciful Creator tell the believers to pray in the following way?

"Our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith and put not in our hearts [any] resentment toward those who have believed. Our Lord, indeed You are Kind and Merciful." (59/10)

If we zoom out from the Muslim communities and look at the world at large, we see hate crimes, human rights violations and cases of unfair discrimination all around. We see retaliations for the past problems, and then retaliations to the retaliations... Such high number of deaths and murders is foretold by the words of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh:

"Near the establishment of the Hour there will be days during which (religious) knowledge will be taken away (vanish) and general ignorance will spread, and there will be Al-Harj in abundance, and Al-Harj means killing." (Bukhari, 7064)

Pondering of the calamities near the end of time, and keeping the Antichrist in perspective, it is not difficult to see that this trouble-maker is probably going to make use of such conflicts among people, and feed his power through the weakness of the societies in conflict.

In order to avoid such exacerbation of conflicts, taking the example of prophet Muhammad and his companions, people need to actively avoid triggers that provoke feelings of vengeance. One way to achieve this, it can be suggested that people should be given more freedom and means to travel farther and faster, and must be enabled to relocate elsewhere easily.