From Bediuzzaman’s Damascus Sermon:

“The thing most worthy of love is love, and the most deserving of enmity is enmity. That is, love and loving, which render man’s social life secure and lead to happiness are most worthy of love and being loved. Enmity and hostility are ugly and damaging, have overturned man’s social life, and more than anything deserve loathing and enmity and to be shunned. 

The time for enmity and hostility is over. Two world wars have shown enmity to be evil, destructive, and an awesome wrong. It has become clear that there is no benefit in it at all. In which case, on condition they are not aggressive, do not let the evils of our enemies attract your enmity, Hell and divine punishment are enough for them. 

Sometimes, man’s arrogance and self-worship cause him to be unjustly hostile towards believers without his being aware of it; he supposes himself to be right. But this hostility and enmity is to slight powerful causes of love towards the believers, like belief, Islam, and fellow-humanity; it is to reduce their value. It is a lunacy like preferring the insignificant causes of enmity to the causes of love which are as great as a mountain.

Since love and enmity are contrary to one another, like light and darkness, they cannot truly combine. The opposite of whichever is predominant in the heart cannot at the same time be truly be present. For example, if love is truly present, then enmity will be transformed into pity and compassion. This is the position towards the believers. Or if enmity is truly present in the heart, then love takes on the form of feigned approval, not interfering, and being apparently friendly. This may be the position towards unaggressive people of misguidance. 

Indeed, the causes of love, like belief, Islam, humanity and fellow-feeling, are strong and luminous chains and immaterial fortresses…

In Short: Love, brotherhood, and affection are basic to Islam, and are its bond. The people of enmity resemble a spoilt child who wants to cry. He looks for an excuse, and something as insignificant as a fly’s wing becomes a pretext. They resemble too an unfair, pessimistic person who so long as it is possible to distrust, never thinks favorably. He ignores then good deeds due to one bad deed. Fairness and favorable thinking, which mark the Islamic character, reject this.” 

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur Collection offers all of us impeccable wisdom in today’s world in overcoming the atrocities, horrors and evils we witness around us. The path to take is one of love, peace, brotherhood and sincerity. This is how we may achieve peace.