A child’s hand reaches through the rubble.

We know nothing about the child. No nationality. No religion. No politics.

Can I play with my toys? No.

Can I go to school? No.

Can I have ice cream? No.

Can I watch the birds cross the sky? No.

Can I put my feet in the sea? No.

A child is not born an enemy. Adults give the child labels.

Before the Hand, the Tongue

War has weapons. But before the weapon often comes the word.

Enemy. Vermin. Traitor. Terrorist. Collateral. Them.

Some words describe real things. Terrorists exist. Combatants exist. Evil exists.

The danger comes when the word ceases to identify the guilty and begins to swallow everyone around them.

Psychology gives the descent a simple shape:

Threat → repetition → association → category → distance → permission → action.

The crucial step is permission. It need not begin as permission to kill.

It begins as permission to care less.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ understood the danger of the tongue with startling economy.

Muʿādh ibn Jabal (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) asked the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ about the deeds that lead to Paradise and away from the Fire. After teaching him about worship, prayer, charity, fasting and other matters, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ took hold of his own tongue.

Muʿādh ibn Jabal (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu) asked whether people would really be accountable for what they said. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ replied that people are cast into the Fire because of what “their tongues have wrought.” Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 2616; al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. (Sunnah)

The image is sometimes rendered as the “harvests of their tongues.”

A harvest begins with a seed.

“O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice.” Qur’an 33:70

“O you who have believed, fear Allah and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)