Assalamualaikum Wr Wb,

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list. InshaAllah this email finds you and your family in the best of health and imaan. May the peace and blessings of Allah SWT be upon you and your family, inshaAllah.

Recap
Muslims are forbidden from going to war in the four months of Ashhurul Hurum. These four months are Zulqaeda, Zulhijjah, Rejab and Muharram. The forbidden months are aimed at softening our hearts and purifying our souls from feelings of anger, hatred, revenge and other diseases of the heart that can affect our spiritual health and the well-being of our akhlak (character). In last week’s newsletter, we discussed the cure for anger. InshaAllah in today’s newsletter, we will be sharing with you regarding another disease of the heart, which is hatred.

Hatred: Not Necessarily Negative
Just like anger, hatred in itself isn’t necessarily negative. It is commendable to hate oppression, corruption, evil, murder, lewdness, and anything else that God has exposed as despicable. The Prophet (SAW) never disliked the essence of anything, but only what something manifested.

Disease of the Heart
Hatred or strong dislike of a person for no legitimate reason is a disease of the heart. The Prophet (SAW) once said to his Companions, “Do you want to see a man of Paradise?” A man then passed by, and the Prophet (SAW) said, “That man is of the people of Paradise.”

One of the Companions wanted to find out what it was about this man that earned him such a commendation from the Messenger of God, so he decided to spend some time with this man and observe him closely. He noticed that this man did not perform the night prayer vigil (tahajjud) or do anything extraordinary. He appeared to be an average man of Medina.

The Companion finally told the man what the Prophet (SAW) had said about him and asked if he did anything special. The man replied, “The only thing that I can think of, other than what everybody else does, is that I make sure that I never sleep with any rancor in my heart towards another.”

Cure for Hatred
The cure for hatred is straightforward. One should pray for the person toward whom he feels hatred, making specific supplications that mention this person by name, asking God to give this person good things in this life and the next. When one does this with sincerity, hearts mend. If one truly wants to purify his or her heart and root out disease, there must be total sincerity in carrying out the treatments and conviction that these cures are effective.
 
Arguably, the disease of hatred is one of the most devastating forces in the world. But the force that is infinitely more powerful is love. Love is an attribute of God; hate is not. A name of God mentioned in the Qur’an is al-Wadūd, the Loving One.

Love Will Triumph
Hate is the absence of love, and only through love can hatred be removed from the heart. In a beautiful hadith, the Prophet (SAW) said, “None of you has achieved faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

The thirteenth century scholar Imam al-Nawawī comments on this hadith: "When the Prophet (SAW) says ‘brother,’ we should interpret this as universal brotherhood, which includes Muslims and non-Muslims. The word ‘love’ here refers to a desire for good and for benefit to come to others. This love is celestial or spiritual love and not earthly or human love, for human nature causes people to desire harm to befall their enemies, and to discriminate against those who are unlike them (in creed, colour, or character).

However, men must oppose their nature, pray for their brothers, and desire for others what they desire for themselves. Moreover, whenever a man does not desire good for his brother, envy is the root cause. Envy is a rejection of God’s apportionment in the world. Thus, one is opposing how God meted out sustenance according to His wisdom. One must oppose his own ego’s desires and seek treatment for this disease with the healing force of acceptance of the divine decree and prayer on behalf of one’s enemies in a way that suppresses the ego (nafs)."
 
"Another disease is hatred for other than the sake of God the Exalted. Its cure is to pray for the one despised." 
 
~
Source: Purification of the Heart by Hamza Yusuf