THE PROPHET AND HIS COMPANIONS

up and asked: “Who does God love most among His servants?” “The one with the best character,” the Prophet replied. (Tabarani, Ibn Habban) Paying back what one owes others A few days before he passed away, the Prophet delivered an unusually long speech. He concluded by saying: “I want to be able to present a clean sheet of my life to God. If I owe anybody anything, which I forgot to repay, or have physically or mentally harmed anyone without my knowledge, then I request him to accept compensation or forgive me.” The Prophet finished speaking and waited a while, but no one spoke up. He then performed the afternoon prayer, after which he repeated his request. A man rose and said: “Prophet of God, you owe me five dirhams.” The Prophet gave instructions for him to be repaid, there and then. Forsaking this world for the next Aisha (wife of the Prophet) says that one of the Companions came to the Prophet and said to him, “I have two servants who persistently deceive, betray and disobey me. I beat them and scold them in return. How do I stand in relation to them?” The Prophet replied: “Their disobedience, perfidy and decep­tion will be weighed up, and so will the reprisals you take against them. If your reprisals are equal to their crimes, then the two will balance one another out. Nothing will be left owing to you, and you will not owe anything. And if your reprisals are less than their crimes, then you will be paid the balance. But if the reprisals you took against them are weightier than the crimes they committed, then they will be repaid from the grace that was previously yours.” The man started crying in front of the Prophet. “Why, have you not read the Book of God?” the Prophet said to him: “We shall set up scales of justice on the Day of Resurrection, so that no soul can be in the least wronged. Actions as small as a grain of mustard seed shall be weighed. We are sufficient as a reckoner.” (21: 47) "O Prophet of God,” the man said, “I think it would be best for me to free them. You are witness to the fact that I have freed them all. (Musnad Ahmad) Being just to all, whether weak or strong Muawiya Ibn Abu Sufyan asked Dhirar to tell him about Ali (the fourth Caliph). Part of Dhirar’s description of Ali’s qualities went like this: “He lived among us like one of us. No one who was in the wrong would have any hope that Ali would side with him, no matter how powerful he was, and no one who was weak would have cause for despair of being treated justly by him.” o