Indeed among the duties of the apostles for the whole mankind is one that tells them to be kind even to the ignorant and biased. The laws should have the language of love and this attribute is specific to the apostles.

In the 10th verse under discussion it says:

“It is part of God’s mercy that you deal gently with them; they would have broken away from you if you were severe and harsh.”

The words “ Alqat’ and “ Galizal Qalb” have nearly similar meaning and that is being hard hearted, uncaring and full of disdain but some have differentiated between the two words. The first word they say means harsh in words and the second means severe in deeds. Some others have said the first means evident anger or harshness and the second means the hidden severity which is the source of all hard heartedness. Opposite to these two words is kindness and love whether it is through words or deeds between them and the people.  

vHistory tells us that this capacity was inherent in the Holy Messenger and so he was able to preach his ministry rapidly among the people. He stopped people from harsh deeds like murder and looting. This results in harsh words also and so it is necessary that the apostle should have these qualities of kindles and love. There umpteen hadiths about this in the life of the Messenger but we are unable to mention them here. We will just relate one incident as an example.

In the battle of Uhud which was a very great debacle in Islam caused by the desertion of the battle field by the Muslims and which lead to the Messenger being seriously injured. But after the battle was over he treated all the Muslims with kindness and forgiveness. He did not shout at them or admonish them. He invited even his enemies to Islam. There are other stories that depict the same trait showed by other prophets and Qura’n says that Noah enjoined them to Islam for 950 years and helped them to understand through all the means possible.

He sometimes preached to them openly and sometimes in secret, sometimes in the day and at times in the night; he would sometimes visit their homes and sometimes they came to join his congregation but still despite this great amount of time none excepting a few believed. This also shows the cold heartedness of the sinners.

God has described their manner of preaching, so much so that he never cursed any one until he became fully convinced about their arrogance. Sometimes men are affected when they see the kindness of the prophets as in the case of Lot. He offered them his daughters only if they believed hoping that they would desist from the evil that they did.

So we see that these great personalities were full of great character and kindness.