It is then that you emulate the Prophet (‘s) and his (‘a)...

It is then that you emulate the Prophet (‘s) and his (‘a), for such is their attitude. Our master, the Commander of the Faithful (‘a), has said, ‘One who is the most loved by Allah is the one who emulates His Prophet (‘s) ’ ( Nahjul-Balagha , sermon 160). When you reward his mistreatment of you by being benevolent to him, you first earn such a lofty station.

Then, despite your poverty, want and need, if you reward a wrong-doer with benevolence, Allah, the Praised and the most Exalted One, through His generosity and plentitude, is more apt to reward you when you respond to a bad deed with a good one. You will then, secondly, have won the proof of being worthy of His generosity. He, Praise to Him, ordered you to be benevolent to one who is mean to you.

He did so in order to admonish you that since you did that, He is more worthy than you of benevolence. You are more worthy of being thus treated; so, He thus ordered you to adopt such a way of treating others. The benefit which you reap from such a treatment is much greater than the benefit which He ordered you to bestow upon the person with whom you beautifully dealt. If you discern well, you will see his mistreatment of yourself.

What raised your status is a favor worthy of being appreciated, in addition to rewarding an evil deed with a good one.[^2] All of this is based on the assumption that the others have mistreated you; otherwise, it is assumed that you are the oppressor, or you feign being oppressed, as can be seen when observing the conditions of most people, for then the matter is much more clear.

We have seen how everyone complains and charges others of oppressing him, yet we have never seen two opponents, be they from among the righteous or the evildoers, admitting oppressing or trespassing on each other. Rather, we still see men of righteousness and piety disputing, each claiming as being oppressed by the other, and that he is the one who had done favors to the other, tolerated him, never lied or dared to antagonize him.

Be informed that this is one of the schemes of the evil-insinuating ‘ nafs ,’ its way of making wrong look right so that the matter will be confused. For this reason, the Wise Legislator rendered the testimony of justice to Himself. He did not permit reliance in this regard on His Justice. Hence, a fair and wise person ought to indict himself with regard to his own self (nafs) and reject its testimony in his favor, a testimony which the Legislator rejects.