On excessive hate and love

 On excessive hate and love

Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r) advised his students, "Make sure your love is not excessive, and your hatred is not destructive." Someone asked, "Can you explain how that is possible?" He replied, "When you love someone like a child [attached to its mother], and when you hate another to the point of wanting to destroy the other person." [Reported by al-Bukharī in his Adab al-Mufrad]. 

All too often in life, it's so easy to go to extremes. Sometimes, we become attached to our beloved to the point of suffocation. And sometimes, our hatred for another grows and grows until we literally desire an enemy to be destroyed in front of our eyes! 

Both are extremely dangerous. It is of course great to have genuine brotherly love with someone, or to love one's spouse passionately. But even then, there should be a tempered attached that is dictated by sensibility, such that one allows the other person the individual space that every human needs, and one isn't blinded completely in the presence of the other. Both you and your beloved need to be able to exist in your own spaces and on your own term as well, for both of your sanities! 

On the other extreme, it is so easy for Shayṭān to make a bad situation between two people much worse, and to allow one unwise comment or unsavory incident to cloud our judgment so much that our hatred against an enemy becomes unreasonable. And when our hatred grows to the level of sheer obsession, we end up destroying ourselves. 

Alī b. Abī Ṭālib (r) wisely remarked, along these same lines, "Love your beloved with just a little less passion, for perhaps a day will come when s/he will be an enemy; and hate your enemy with just a little less passion, for perhaps a day will come when s/he will be your closest friend!" 

Wise words from wise Companions.