Quran Garden

Session 448

Chapter 3

Verse 118

a continuation

O you who believe!  Do not take your confidants from others than yourselves; such outsiders will spare nothing to ruin you.  They are eager to see you in distress.  Hatred has already shown itself from their mouths, and what their chests hide is yet worse.  We have certainly made the signs clear for you, should you apply reason.  (Chapter 3: Verse 118)

At the dawn of Islam, many who embraced the new faith had family, friends, and close business ties to the disbelievers.  Allah warned them against being fooled by such relations.  You should not say, "These are my relatives and friends, so I can trust them with all my affairs." The brotherhood of faith surpasses all other relations.  You should be careful which people you love and trust because the wrong friendship opens all kinds of doors towards evil.  More importantly, this gap between faith and disbelief will not narrow or disappear just because you have blood or social relations. 

Allah asks you to raise your guard when you are in the camp of the non-believers because -at the core- they oppose your faith.  The real danger is not through direct opposition because it is unlikely that your close friends or business associates would ask you to leave Islam; rather, it is the small persistent matters that spoil your faith over time.  The phrase "will spare nothing to ruin you" is translated from the Arabic الخبال (Al Khabal) which is the corruption of the mind. 

A Muslim friend shares your values and will alert you if you are doing something wrong.  On the other hand, a disbeliever may encourage you to go against your values, and more importantly, they are happier when you distance yourself from Islam.  God says, "they are eager to see you in distress."

Let's take a moment to explore how distress enters your life.  Ease comes from being in harmony with yourself and the society around you.  When you are surrounded by disbelievers, matters become difficult because there is no one to help you in your mission.  On the contrary, they spoil it by wasting your time or inviting you to parties and financial dealings inconsistent with your faith.  If you respond to their invitations, they are happy.  If you resist, you become a stranger in your environment.  Either way, you lose the harmony in your life as guilt, anxiety, and turmoil dominate.  Allah wants ease for you.  He says,   

God knows the ones who cause corruption from the ones who bring about reform, and had God wished He would have put you to hardship." Indeed God is all-mighty, all-wise.  (from 2:220)

Take a look at the most successful societies in our modern time.  They are well established economically and financially.  The poor and elderly are secured by social safety nets, top-notch health care, and most people enjoy high incomes.  Still, surprisingly, they live in psychological fatigue, have high suicide rates, sexual deviancy, and rampant divorce.  The natural question to ask is: Why?  We answer that our psychological faculties become at odds without a connection to the Lord.  There is no harmony within the self, nature, or society.  This leaves a void that people try to fill with material possessions or substance abuse. 

Let me give you an example of how God's teachings bring harmony into your life.  A man who is sitting with his wife enjoys looking at her.  He is comfortable and satisfied because his physical, psychological, and mental faculties are in harmony.  Contrast that with a man at a dinner gathering who wants to look at the wife of a friend.  First, he looks around to check whether anyone is paying attention to him, glances quickly at the woman, and rechecks if anyone caught him.  If a friend notices, he has to play it cool and pretend to look elsewhere.  This man is at odds with himself, the society around him, and his Lord.  Is this any way to live?!

Thus, Allah warns you: beware of getting too close to the disbelievers because they will always add hardship, psychological, and social stress to your life.  They take advantage of kinship and friendship ties to pressure you in ways that contradict your faith.  The conflict between your faith and disbelieving friends can either end in the corruption of your beliefs or damage to the relationship.  Which way do you think the disbelievers want you to go?  God says,

O you who believe!  Do not take your confidants from others than yourselves; such outsiders will spare nothing to ruin you.  They are eager to see you in distress.  Hatred has already shown itself from their mouths, and what their chests hide is yet worse.  We have certainly made the signs clear for you, should you apply reason.  (Chapter 3: Verse 118)

Here we ask, if hatred and ridicule are evident from what they say about Islam, how can we take such people as friends?  More importantly, when you surround yourself with a group of disbelieving friends, they may include some hypocrites whose tongue says the opposite of what is hidden.  God says,

When it is said to them, "Believe, as the others believe," they say, "Should we believe as the fools do?" but they are the fools, though they do not know it.  When they meet the believers, they say, "We believe," but when they are alone with their devils, they say, "We're really with you; we were only mocking." (2:14, 15)

This is how hatred spills from the mouths of the hypocrites who waver in between the faithful and their enemies.  Rest assured that the words that spill in front of you is but little of what is said behind your back in mockery and ridicule.   But God knows all –what is said in secret and more,- and He exposes such hypocrisy to the believers.  He says,

Do the corrupt at heart assume that God will not expose their malice?  We could even point them out to you if We wished, and then you could identify them by their marks, but you will know them anyway by the tone of their speech.  God knows everything you do.  (47:29-30)

The disbelievers and the hypocrites should have known that there is a Lord –their Creator- watching and supporting the believers against them.  In fact, if you pay close attention, you will pick up on their loathing of faith.  God says, "Hatred has already shown itself from their mouths, and what their chests hide is yet worse."  The revelation of this verse was an opportunity for them to defend themselves and say that "our hearts are free of hate." But they did not. 

Thus, you –as a believer- no longer have an excuse.   Allah gave you all the information you need to guard your faith.  He made it clear that the enemies of Islam would spare no effort to detach the believers from this religion.  He says, "We have certainly made the signs clear for you, should you apply reason."