Seventh Matter: A call to those who show too much patriotism in negative nationalism.

SEVENTH MATTER

We say to those who display excessive patriotism and negative nationalism: if you truly love this nation and are compassionate towards it, be patriotic in such a way that the compassion is directed towards the majority of its members. For if you serve the temporary heedless social life of the minority, who are in no need of compassion, in a way that is the reverse of compassion for the majority, that is not patriotism. For patriotic works performed with the idea of negative racialism may be temporarily beneficial for two out of eight. They receive the compassion arising from that patriotism, of which they are not worthy. While the remaining six out of eight are either elderly, or sick, or afflicted with tribulations, or are children, or are weak, or are pious people thinking seriously of the hereafter; these people want a light, a solace, compassion, in the face of the life of the Intermediate Realm and the hereafter, towards which they are turned, rather than worldly life; they are in need of a blessed, patriotic hand. What patriotism would permit the extinguishing of their light, the destruction of their solace? Alas! Compassion for the nation, self-sacrifice for the nation, where are they?

Hope in Divine Mercy must not be lost. For Almighty Allah will not cause to perish through temporary set-backs the magnificent army and mighty community of the people of this land, whom He employed for a thousand years in the service of the Qur’an, appointing them as its standard-bearer. He will once again kindle that light and cause them to continue their duty, God willing.