Letter (17): In response to Muawiya's letter
Your demand that I hand over the territory of Syria to you, so today I refrained from giving you what I refused yesterday and your saying that the war has consumed the Arabs and there is nothing left in it except the last breaths, so you should know that what the truth has eaten has restored heaven and what falsehood has made a morsel of has gone to hell. I can't be as active as I can stick to belief and the people of Syria are not as concerned about this world as the people of Iraq are about to die for the hereafter. But Umayya Hashim's tactics are not equal to Abdul Muttalib's and Abu Sufyan's are not equal to Abu Talib's. (After the Conquest of Makkah) He was not the peer of the Muhajir who was left behind. And what has been done separately is not like the bright and pure relative and the wrongdoer is not like the worshiper of the right. And the hypocrite is not equal to the believer. What a bad generation is the generation that is following the ancestors who fell into hell.
Then after that we also have the honor of Prophethood, through which We made the powerful weak and the lowly exalted, and when Allah brought the Arabs into His religion in droves and the Ummah came to Islam willingly or unwillingly, you were the people who brought Islam out of greed and fear at a time when those who excelled had achieved excellence and the emigrants had taken away the first grace and honor.
(Listen) Do not harbor Satan in you and do not allow him to overshadow you.
