(From Mr. Adnan Oktar's live interview on Kanal 35 TV and TV Kayseri, November 22nd, 2009)
ADNAN OKTAR:
If you ask, as I was saying just yesterday, they will say they have one real friend, or maybe two, that is all. One needs great care and attention for true love to flourish, because unless people are very wise, very careful and attentive, and unless they know the other person really well, they will constantly clash and begin to behave in a way that the other person finds repulsive. Ignorance, for instance, has a very negative effect on people, but a wise person avoids ignorance, and he can educate himself, and increase their store of knowledge. But people do not regard ignorance as important. Yet it has a huge negative effect, for instance being unwise has a very negative effect, but one can educate ignorance out of people if one loves. The important thing is to decide to love. If you educate someone, their ignorance can vanish by time, being unwise can vanish in time, because once one follows the Qur’an one also becomes highly wise as long as he is clever. One has to educate them patiently, and direct them in such a way that they will love Allah.
It is very dangerous to try and make someone love you; that is always futile in the end. That is how it is. Someone who causes another to love Allah, also makes them love him. In other words, one needs to direct people to the source of true love, not to insist that they love us. Once they love Allah, they will love the other person as a manifestation of Allah. Otherwise their behavior will be very odd, and human beings are utterly helpless creatures with all their natural needs -without the soul, just a piece of flesh-. But the manifestation of Allah in them, His radiance, excites people, and Allah then creates love. In other words, there is a power in the heart known as love, an unknown power, not something deriving from flesh and blood. It is a light bestowed by Allah, a special emotion. And it grows in proportion to people’s faith; the more love for Allah a person has, the more human love he will have, too. People with little love of Allah have little capacity for love, they are too weak. For example, the souls of the prophets were full of love; they loved animals, their wives, their children, their communities and the people around them. They loved plants and flowers. Our Prophet (saas) was like that, for instance. He was very, very patient and attached great importance to wisdom, regarding it as a manifestation of Allah. He had roses he loved very much. He loved plants, and cats, and his grandchildren. He used to laugh and joke with them. People normally expect a prophet to be serious all the time, but our Prophet (saas) was always very genuine and spontaneous toward Hazrat Hassan and Hussein. They used to come and sit by their grandfather as he performs his prayer. They would come and sit on top of him. He would have to wait for them to sit up from his prostrations. One of the companions prostrated himself in prayer, and when he sat up he saw that his grandson was sitting on top of our Prophet (saas), and that he would not raise his head until his grandson did so. Anyone else might have led the child off or got angry. He used to play catch with his wives, and joke with them, and was full of love. He would embrace Hassan and Hussein wherever he saw them, and was full of love for the children of other believers. He also had a great love of trees, and a love of everything beautiful, and he was exceptionally compassionate, as well as being exceedingly patient.
For example, somebody would say something, but he never grew angry and always answered in a pleasant manner. Many people became Muslims because of his patience. For example, he forgave Hazrat Wahshi, who martyred Hazrat Hamza, didn’t he? That is great patience. At the same time, he did not become angry, he was able to control his anger. He showed him affection for Allah’s sake, and he also became a very valuable person. Many people who saw him became Muslims in the same way. But there is a lack of patience today, a lack of patience can cause severe conflict between children going to school and their mothers, between mothers and spouses, between grandparents and grandchildren. For example, we should be more flexible toward the elderly, more tolerant and warmer. Because we should not necessarily seek logic in the elderly, and if their behavior defies logic, then affection must enter the equation.
There is no question of anyone always being in the right. The word “exasperation” is used a great deal. The Qur’an mentions the word. People become exasperated with their parents, whereas they should treat them with affection, shouldn’t they? If one is a believer, a mother or a father who fears Allah, one should treat them with great affection and be forgiving toward them, thus maintaining the bond of love. The reason why marriages fail is again a lack of patience. The husband or his spouse comes home late one day, for example, and a huge row develops. But there may have been a reason why he or she was delayed. We are all human. That is an unnecessary suspicion, isn’t it? One needs to have patient in this case, needs to be patient in trust, needs to be patient in putting one’s trust in Allah. If people live by these things, the result will be excellent, high-quality individuals, insha’Allah.
The above interview transcript is from the official website of Mr.Adnan Oktar, the renowned author known all over the world by his pen name Harun Yahya. He has authored more than 300 books on science, faith and politics, which are translated into more than 80 languages.He has published over 200 documentary films in various languages.His official website http://www.harunyahya.com is visited by millions of people from different countries.
