“See the good side of things, so that you will have good thoughts. Know things to be good and think of them as good, so that you will find pleasure in life.

In life, hope and thinking well of things is life itself, while despair and thinking ill of others is the destroyer of happiness and killer of life.”¹⁾

“A person is charged with having a good opinion. He must regard everyone as superior to himself and must not project his own bad traits onto others under the impulse of ill suspicion. Nor should he condemn other people’s actions simply because he does not perceive their wisdom. Thus, to dislike certain states of the great predecessors whose wisdom we do not understand is ill suspicion—and ill suspicion damages both the material and the spiritual fabric of society.”²⁾

“Even if a man displays ten signs of hypocrisy and only one indication of faith, we are still obliged, as far as we can, to think well of him. True, because of those blameworthy qualities he should greatly fear for himself and worry about his end; yet we must never pronounce him a hypocrite. We should prefer to err by misjudging in good opinion rather than hit the mark in ill suspicion.

At the same time, protecting the public trust in religious service, we may act more cautiously when deciding what duties to give a person who shows signs of hypocrisy. Following the Bediüzzaman’s rule of ‘good opinion, yet no (automatic) trust,’ we may assign him certain tasks so that he, too, shares in serving the Qur’an, while keeping him away from confidential matters. Thus we both safeguard the community’s rights and fulfil our good opinion that such people can shed their ugly traits and become sincere believers.

Still, it must never be forgotten that among those devoted to the same ideal good opinion and mutual confidence are essential; brothers must never mistrust one another on the basis of unverified reports, trifling pretexts, or mere doubts and misgivings. The notion of “withholding trust” must be kept strictly limited.”³⁾

“Just as keeping a good opinion at all times is a basic principle, so too is avoiding conduct that could lead others into ill suspicion. Some people do not sufficiently refrain from ways and behaviors liable to arouse ugly thoughts about them: their eating and drinking, their sleeping and rising, their business practices, their earnings, their human relations lend themselves to criticism. Thus they trigger bad feelings and base speculations in natures already prone to ill-thought. Therefore, in addition to living by constant good opinion, everyone must examine his own state and steer clear of situations that provoke ill suspicion.”⁴⁾

“Believers, who are always commanded to think well of people, can never allow any discontent that hints at ill suspicion toward the dealings of the Exalted Creator. A believer must first of all have good opinion toward the God Almighty. The sacred hadith ‘I treat My servant according to his opinion of Me’ shows how crucial it is to hold a good opinion of God and what a great means of salvation it is.”⁵⁾

“Good intention, positive thought, and good opinion are signs of purity of heart and breadth of conscience. Once a person begins scrutinizing others, he will leave no one off the defendants’ bench; if he does not cling to good opinion from the outset, he cannot avoid judging everyone and everything. Therefore each individual, while thrashing himself in self-reckoning (without falling into despair), must cling to good opinion when it comes to others. Remember: it is better to be wrong in good opinion than to be right in ill suspicion.”⁶⁾

Türkçe