644 
APPENDIX V. 
Islam, and they had received his missives ; and he kept faith 
with them. This, too, was the way he treated the Jews of 
Medina, before he went to war with them. Thus God says : 
^ Thou wilt not cease to discover deceivers among them, with 
few exceptions ; but forgive them, and pardon them, for God 
loves the beneficent!'* And they used to salute him by 
saying, 'Assildm alaika ! ' f with Kesra of the Sin ; but he 
used to make no other answer but ^ And on you ! ' At last 
'Aisha observed it, and reproached them, and cursed them ; 
but he reproved her. So she said, * Did you not hear what 
they said?' And he replied, ' But did not you hear how I 
returned their salutation? Now, what I wished them will 
be granted, but what they wished me will not be granted!' 
And it was only as respects the enemies of God — persons 
fighting against God and his Prophet, and waging war with 
the adherents of El Islam for the sake of their religion — 
that the Prophet forbids what he forbade as to this mode of 
treatment. The injunction with regard to such is what God 
says: Prophet, persecute the unbelievers and hypocrites, 
and be severe with them !' J Thus every believer has a spe- 
cial statute. There came to me, one day, a man of the Fullan, 
of the Fullan of the A¥est, who pretended to be learned, but 
who had no learning, who said to me, ' Does not God say, 
" You will not find any people who believe in God and the 
last day, loving those who resist God and his Prophet," § (and 
the rest of that verse), and yet you love this Christian unbe- 
liever ?' I replied, 'Do not you, too, obey this other word of 
God ? " God does not forbid you to show kindness and equity 
to those who have not borne arras against you on account of 
religion, and have not expelled you from your dwellings, for 
God loves those that deal justly; God only forbids your 
* Sur. v. 16. 
■f The name of some bitter tree. This story is told in Mishkat 
el Masabih, vol. ii. 394. ; but assam (destruction) is the word there 
used. 
X Sur. ix. 74. § Sur. Iviii. 22. 
