Is Revenge Worth it?

Is Revenge Worth It?

And bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma Ameen.

The Story of Alqam ibn Wa'il

Alqam ibn Wa'il رضي الله تعالى عنه narrates an extremely interesting incident with the Prophet ﷺ. And I remember the very first time that I read — or actually heard someone speaking about — this incident. I thought to myself, this can't be authentic, until I actually went and found its authenticity.

So he says from his father that he was sitting with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. At that point another man came to the Prophet ﷺ while he was sitting, and he had another man tied up. So two men come to the Prophet ﷺ, one of them holding the other, and he's got him tied up. And he says, "This man killed my brother."

So the Prophet ﷺ looked at the man that was tied up and said to him, "Did you really kill him?" And before the other man could answer, the one who had him tied up — who was full of anger over what had happened to his brother — said, "Ya Rasulullah, if he doesn't admit to it, then I have all the evidence that he did it anyway." So if he says no, he's in trouble, and if he says yes, he's in trouble. The evidence is very clear.

So the man says, "Yes, I killed him." So the Prophet ﷺ said, "Tell me what happened." He said to the Prophet ﷺ that they were chopping wood together. He insulted him, and they got into a heated argument. And in the middle of that argument, he hit him with his fa's — he hit him with his axe — and he killed him. So it was a heated argument that took place. Apparently they were co-workers, or they worked together, maybe even relatives. But in the middle of that argument, he ended up killing him.

So the Prophet ﷺ said to him:

"Do you have any money or any wealth that you can avail yourself of today — that perhaps you can offer something to the family because of what you have done?"

He said:

"Ya Rasulullah, I have absolutely no wealth except for my axe, and the clothes that are on my back."

So the Prophet ﷺ said to him:

"Do you think that your people — your family, or your tribe — would come forth and offer something on your behalf?" He said:

"I don't mean that much to my people." So I have nothing to give, I have nothing to offer. It was a bad argument, and the man is resigned to death. He knows that execution is coming his way, because at the end of the day, though he didn't intend to kill the man, it happened — and he doesn't feel like he has any way to get himself out of the situation.

The Prophet ﷺ himself, and you go to another narration that explains this a little bit longer, wants to intercede on behalf of the man — with wealth and with prompting — the man who has the right to kill him, because of him killing his brother. So the Prophet ﷺ looks towards the man whose brother was killed, and he says:

"Pardon him." And the man refuses.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Take your compensation — we will give you something — but let it go. Forgive him. Pardon him."

And the man refused again.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

"In that case, go ahead, carry out the death penalty — but know that you are no better than him. You are just like him."

And so the man took him and walked away from the Prophet ﷺ. So someone goes and runs behind him and says, "Didn't you hear that the Prophet ﷺ said to you,

'Kill him, but if you do so, you are just like him.' Don't you see what the Prophet ﷺ is trying to tell you?" And the man, as he's being prompted in that regard and realizing that the Prophet ﷺ is telling him something deeper, he lets him go and starts to walk the rest of the way, dragging the rope. And the people see him walking in silence through the city, with his rope dragging on the ground.

The Deeper Lesson

SubhanAllah, this narration is so deep. And I remember the very first time I heard it, I thought to myself, well, that man has the right to do what he's going to do. And the Prophet ﷺ was sent to establish justice. But there's something deeper here.

That the Prophet ﷺ, while he was sent to establish the right to justice, was also seeking to bring about the best spiritual potential of those that he was sent to. He wasn't condemning the man if he did what he was going to do, but he was telling the man that if you go forth and do this, you're going to be just like him.

And there's so much that cannot translate through a text. What did the Prophet ﷺ see of regret, perhaps, in the man that committed the murder? What did the Prophet ﷺ see of a rage that would consume that person in the future? There's so much that can come through the text, which is why the scholars say only the Prophet ﷺ had the right to say to that person, "Do it, but you are just like him." That a qadi cannot say — a judge cannot say — to a person فإنك مثله, that you'll be just like him. Because the Prophet ﷺ was clearly reading a situation, and only the Messenger of Allah ﷺ has that right.

However, the lesson that we can still take from it is deeply profound.

A Day for a Day: The Mindset of the Mushrikeen

Why do I start with this story? Last week we talked about the famous conversation between Abu Sufyan and Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه after the Battle of Uhud. And there's so much to take from that conversation.

"Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hellfire" — until the end of it. A very famous conversation that we've reflected on quite a bit after Gaza. But subhanAllah, there's something else I want to extract from that hadith that relates to us in a deeply personal way.

Which is that if you were from the mushrikeen, all you had was a day for a day:

All you had was worldly victory and worldly defeat. Because there was absolutely nothing else to encourage you to act in a different way, as far as any hereafter conception was concerned. You don't believe in anything deeper. You don't believe in a hereafter. You don't believe in divine justice.

And so what this means — as the scholars say — if you were to be in Mecca after the Battle of Badr, put aside the context that indeed they were wrong and brought Badr upon themselves as the Quraish. That they deserve to be fought because of all the fighting that they had done. But see it just as a worldly loss from their perspective. They don't have the ability to comfort each other and say, "Our dead are shuhada."

They have no conception of "Our dead are now with Allah and with the angels, roaming through the heavens." They have absolutely no idea of:

"We'll be patient and we'll seek the reward in the hereafter." They have absolutely nothing. They have the full bitterness of defeat in this dunya without any idea of the sweetness of a hereafter. It's gone and that's a miserable existence. They can't comfort themselves with anything.

And so they were literally boiling in their anger with revenge as the only driver that they had. And they said to each other — and there are multiple conversations you can find between Abu Sufyan and Safwan ibn Umayyah and others — that life has no sweetness anymore. They had absolutely no way to move past Badr except for seeing blood in their hands. Because they had nothing else to drive them.

The Muslims After Uhud: A Different Posture

The Muslims, on the other hand, recovered from Uhud. Again, take away right from wrong — just the idea of seeing your loved ones killed in battle. They had something to comfort themselves with after Uhud. They knew that their dead were in paradise. They believed in a concept of shahada. They believed in a concept of a higher reward. They knew that Allah would not let those moments of bitterness go to waste. And that's why they were different.

You see, if you think about what drove Abu Sufyan — a day for a day — and then the mutilation of the bodies in Uhud, just to feel extra. It's not enough to kill because some of ours were killed. But we have to cut off noses, and cut out the stomachs, and chew the livers, and dump wine on their bodies. We have to go extra to really ensure that we won.

When the Prophet ﷺ came back in Fath Mecca, and had all of these people at his mercy, you didn't see them going and branding some of the disbelievers who carried out the worst atrocities. You didn't see them respond in kind, because they were fighting for Allah. They were forgiving for Allah. They were driven by revelation, not by revenge. There was something else that was moving them, and it was deeper than anything that those people could have understood in the moment.

And that's the beauty of what we have. Justice had to be served. Bilal رضي الله تعالى عنه, who was once dragged in the streets of Mecca, had to be standing on top of the Ka'bah saying Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Indeed, what was wrong had to be put in its rightful place. But the driver was entirely different.

The People of Gaza: Remarkably Not Bitter

And subhanAllah, to take this back to the people of Gaza — I remember when Dr. Farhan came back from Gaza, one of the things that he mentioned, subhanAllah, that surprised him. And I asked him, what surprised you? And a lot of doctors — and I know, mashaAllah, we have many of them here, may Allah bless you all and reward you, Allahumma Ameen — many of them, if you ask what surprised them, will give you a similar answer. And he said that the people of Gaza are remarkably not bitter. They don't talk that much about revenge. As much as they are directing their pain to Allah, and their ihtisab, and they're seeking the reward from Allah, and seeking that greater victory with Allah.

That doesn't mean in any way that the genocide and atrocity being inflicted upon them should be excused. That doesn't mean in any way that the evil we see being inflicted on them is not indeed evil. That doesn't mean in any way that we shouldn't stop fighting against that evil on their behalf. That doesn't lessen the betrayal of the Arab and Muslim leaders around them that they complain about. But their posture — their hearts — are directed towards taking this tragedy and lessening the tragedy of the hereafter. They are more driven by that than anything else, at the spiritual level, with what they are encountering.

And that's this perfect balance — that while we fight for justice, we seek the pleasure of Allah. And at no point do we allow ourselves to be relegated exclusively to a worldly plane.

Ali and the Battlefield: The Ego Takes Over

Now bring it back to our individual affairs. There are lowly goals, there are lowly motives. And subhanAllah, there is a narration about Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه — I couldn't find a source for it, so just take it for its wisdom — that many of us have heard. That Sayyidina Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه one time was in the battlefield and he overcame a man. And as he got that man down, the man spit on him. And Ali رضي الله تعالى عنه leaves him and says, "I was going to kill you for the sake of Allah. But once you spit on me, it became about something else."

The ego takes over. We become overpowered by something else. The motivation is not the same.

From Mazlum to Zalim: The Danger in Personal Relationships

When we come to our own personal relationships and zulm that can happen in the capacity of a relationship — it is very, very normal that two people can both claim to be mazlum, can both claim to be oppressed, while they're both oppressors in their own right. This is very normal. Because we interpret the world through our experiences. And when we don't have revelation to guide us, then we end up creating that world — or reinforcing that world — over and over and over again.

And one of the things, subhanAllah, that one of my teachers told me years ago — I mentioned to him a situation of zulm — and he said, "The first advice I would give to you is don't do anything that would take you from being a mazlum to a zalim. Don't do anything that would take you from being a wronged person to a wronging person. Don't do anything that would take you out of the category — with Allah — of being oppressed to being an oppressor."

And I thought to myself, how is that even possible? And it is possible — because you could start off in a situation indeed being one who is mazlum, one who is wronged. But then the course of action that you decide to take, driven by revenge, could put you in the category of being a zalim.

The Case of Divorce

And you know where this is most true? And I want to strike directly at it without any sugarcoating. Divorce. Talaq. In our community.

Yes, in the beginning you often see that one party has wronged another party more. There is a zalim and a mazlum — let's say it's 75/25 in the beginning, or 60/40, but there's some sort of clear assignment of wrongdoing when someone is analyzing the situation from a little distance and says, "Yeah, this person took it a little too far." If I was to assign blame — blame is usually on both sides — but usually there is a 70-30, or a 60-40, or something there, where either to the man or the woman, you can see the blame goes a little bit more on one side.

But then the course of action taken afterwards renders the mazlum or the mazluma — the zalim or the zalima — the wronging party. Why? Because in the capacity of seeking justice, you become unjust sometimes. You take it too far.

And so it could be that indeed you were wronged, and no one disputes that. But then what you did over the next three months — no justification for that. And you can't keep milking, "I was wronged initially," because this doesn't work with Allah that someone wronged me first, therefore I can keep this going and going and going, and there is no sanctity anymore to that other human being, to that other person. It doesn't work that way in Islam.

Allah establishes the rights. If rights were taken, rights should be given back as much as they possibly can. But sometimes you go too far. And you think it's going to heal you, and it doesn't heal you. And if you take more than what Allah has given you in the capacity of justice, on the Day of Judgment, what does it benefit you? That you took yourself out of a category from being mazlum to being zalim, from being wronged to being wronging.

And that extra property that you took chokes you on the Day of Judgment. Those extra sins committed — the extra of the tongue, the extra of the hand, the extra of the harm that was done after the divorce — sinks your mizan on the Day of Judgment and causes you to be bankrupt on the Day of Judgment. What did you actually benefit? Did it heal you here? Nor did it heal you there? It seemed like it would be sweet. It wasn't sweet.

Because one of the greatest lies that Shaytan has ever sold is that revenge is sweet. It's not sweet.

Again, that doesn't mean don't pursue your huquq. That doesn't mean relinquish all of your rights. That doesn't mean that we don't need to do better as communities in terms of establishing weights of justice. But at the end of the day, the Prophet ﷺ warned us from becoming so caught up in this that we no longer see the ability to seek Allah's mercy, to seek Allah's pardon, and to seek Allah's forgiveness.

And just like there is ihsan in a marriage — ihsan in a marriage is giving more than what you demand — there is ihsan in divorce as well. As Allah mentions:

To separate in excellence as well. Ihsan exists in every single domain of our lives, even the ugliest scenarios in our lives. But it takes you to step back and say: what do I actually want?

The Verse of Patience and Forgiveness

And subhanAllah, because we're out of time, I don't have time to go into the details of what Allah has at the end of Surah Ash-Shura. But Allah says:

"For the one who is patient and forgives, then verily, that is of the affairs that requires the greatest determination." You have to be really determined, really driven for the pleasure of Allah, to still be able to show mercy and forgiveness and patience when you were the initial wronged party.

However, the verses before that, Allah is distinguishing:

"An evil is repaid with an evil just like it." That there are consequences, that we do establish justice in our deen. But then it comes to you as a person to say: what do I really want?

The Hadith of Hudhaifah: Do Not Be Without a Will

I end with the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, because of the time, and the words of the Prophet ﷺ are comprehensive and they give us so much to reflect upon. Hudhaifah ibn al-Yaman رضي الله تعالى عنه narrates that the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2007)

"Do not be people without a will of your own" — and this word إِمَّعَة means you go with the flow, with different meanings and connotations in different usages — "who say: if people treat us well with ihsan, we will treat them with ihsan, and if they oppress us, we will oppress them. Instead, train yourselves so that if people show you excellence, you show them excellence in return. And if they wrong you," the Prophet ﷺ said, "do not wrong them back. Do not become an oppressor yourself."

Conclusion: Don't Become What You Hate

Dear brothers and sisters, the message is clear: don't become what you hate. As Muslims, this has a political connotation — that all of the zulm done against us politically does not allow us to become people of zulm ourselves. Because they are not our teachers. Benjamin Netanyahu is not our teacher. These people are not our teachers.

On a personal level, because all of us are going to have moments where we are stung, or we feel like we're stung — and some of those relationships are going to be more consequential than others — be driven by Allah and what you seek from Him.

May Allah make us a people of higher aspirations and higher manners, who seek higher rewards even in the most devastating situations in our lives. JazakAllah khair.