Defeating the enemy by making them a friend

The Companions (Ashab) are the community of virtuous friends who gave friendship its due better than any people, and who therefore live up to their name. Their perfect friendship had become possible through the training they received from the best source of friendship. Thus we also see that true friendship based on virtue is something learned and taught. A friendship such as transforms enmity, removes the causes of enmity, and lets one feel the blessing of making those who were enemies of one another brothers.

When Muhammad (pbuh), whom the Quraysh in fact knew as trustworthy and reliable as could be, criticized the gods they were worshipping, a deep enmity began among them. Yet by the trustworthiness he displayed toward them, by his perfect character, he had fulfilled the one-sided first condition of friendship. By what he told them he was again doing the greatest good a friend can do for a friend, offering truth as a "gift." This truth would let them realize the grave-like comfort in which they had buried themselves and be revived.

He was telling them of the falseness of the idols, which had no meaning or counterpart beyond their own naming of them, and of the friendship they formed around those idols and through the bonds of belonging that they represented. But they were in a state in which they could not hear a call that would revive them even from one they called trustworthy and trusted. They did not merely refuse; they answered him and those who believed with exclusion, mockery, humiliation and torture. Thus the distance of enmity that had come between them seemed at first glance in no way closable. Indeed the Quraysh fought, at Badr, Uhud and the Trench, the enemies it had forced into hijra, and they killed one another. These deepened the enmity between them further and made it insurmountable.

Despite this, those insurmountable distances were overcome. They were overcome by fighting, but war was not aimed at destruction; it was one of the ways of breaking the extreme prejudices that can arise while delivering the message to people and of removing jahiliyya. For Muslims, however, even the enemies they fought were until the last moment the target of their message, and therefore potential friends. This enmity and friendship do not rest on a given cause that cannot be overcome and is generally not in a person's hands, such as race or tribe, or being kin by blood. On the contrary, because both friendship and enmity are things a person can choose, and are based on principles or virtues, no one is a final enemy, nor even a guaranteed eternal friend. A learned friendship can also be forgotten.

The war that those bound by blood fought at Badr against one another, on the side of friends with whom they had no blood tie at all, is one of the most typical and at the same time founding examples in the history of Islam.

At the end of 23 years, a community nearly all of which had been enemy was transformed entirely into companions / friends. Passing through the Prophet's purification and joining the circle and training of friendship, it rose to the level of the best community brought forth for humankind. When the Prophet said to them "The moon has appeared," rather than, as İsmet Özel puts it, "climbing a hill and running to look at the moon," they trusted him enough to "celebrate" directly, and even celebrated the Prophet's presence among them by saying "the moon has risen over us."

To become a friend while being an enemy is how foreign to the horizon of the friend-enemy relations we have been accustomed to today, yet in fact how great a blessing. Generally, elements such as clan, tribe, nation and people establish their friendships and enmities in a metaphysical realm that will never change. The desire not to grant the enemy the right to life, to annihilate and ruin him, is the only motivation. Yet the greatest victory of a friendship that seeks God's friendship and good pleasure is not to defeat the enemy by destroying him, but to win him over and make him a friend.

This example, which may sound a little too romantic, is a model of friendship and enmity that the Prophet himself proved by actually applying it: when he conquered Mecca, he had gained the power to take revenge on and destroy those who had shown him so much enmity. Just as he had gained it before over the people of Taif, who had driven him out by stoning him. Yet with the pardon he showed these enemies the Prophet won the friendship of those who had shown him the most violent enmity; in fact he taught them friendship too, and in the full sense of the word became their friend, their guardian (wali), their companion.

He pardoned even Wahshi, who had slain his own beloved uncle, and Hind, who had instigated him and, after he killed, displayed her rancor by splitting open and eating the liver, and her husband Abu Sufyan. He did not stop at pardoning; he took them too among his companions.

If "forgiving" were something that could be done easily, there would be no virtue in it. Let us often reflect on our experiences of forgiveness. Whom, and under what conditions, and how much can you forgive? The breadth you can show in being able to forgive also shows your capacity to be a friend and to make friends.

The whole sira of the best teacher of the art of friendship to people is full of countless examples. Let us mention only a few. Examples each of which holds magnificent lessons on being and winning a good friend.

For instance, when a bird that a child had fed and with which he had formed the most naive, most unselfish and naive friendship died, going to his house with all seriousness and genuineness to offer condolences. Without regard to his age, and without regard to what response this would meet in the adult world regarding its value and meaning, walking the way to this small child's heart...

When a Bedouin who came while the Prophet and his companions were present relieved himself at random in the mosque, calming the anger that seized everyone and ordering them to leave that Bedouin alone. The lesson he gave against the indigestion that can arise in the face of the civilizational level, status, mind, manner of behavior and so on of that Bedouin, who in fact represented the complete stranger. Wait a moment, what is he doing it for, who is he, perhaps he does not know, perhaps he has no ill intent, perhaps he really has a necessity, perhaps this is his culture and he is coming to get acquainted with you. How do we receive the stranger who comes? Perhaps there is news in him for you, perhaps for your own good, and so on.

His reaction when the weariness and anger felt toward one of the companions, who was brought before him because he was caught continually drinking and drunk, reached the point of "this man will not be reformed, he has made it a habit, let us take off his head": "You look at the outward, but how do you know the deep love in his heart for God and His Messenger?" To see the closeness and the bond of affection within someone who is seen as distant and does not fit the molds, to see the friendship in him and to give it its due.

"Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is best, and behold, the one between whom and you there was enmity will become as though he were a close friend! But none will attain this except those who are patient, and none will attain it except those who have a great share of virtues" (Fussilat, 34-35).