The First Hatred: From Qabil and Habil to the Human Cycle of Violence

Imagine a world before nations existed, before borders divided territories, before armies marched under flags, and before human beings had accumulated centuries of historical memories about war. There were no political ideologies, no modern weapons, and no inherited hatred between nations. There were simply human beings living alongside one another. Yet even in such a world, human beings would still possess desires, fears, anger, jealousy, affection, and the ability to choose. This raises a profound question: who was the first human being to feel hatred, jealousy, or envy, and did that emotion become the beginning of the cycle of violence that has continued throughout human history?

From an Islamic perspective, we cannot identify the first human being who ever experienced hatred. The Qur'an does not tell us who first felt jealousy, nor does it describe every emotion experienced by the earliest human beings. However, the Qur'an gives us one of the earliest and most powerful stories about the emergence of human violence through the story of Qabil and Habil, the two sons of Adam. In Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:27–31, both offer sacrifices, but the sacrifice of one is accepted while the other's is not. The rejected brother then threatens to kill his brother. The Qur'an describes his own inner impulse as driving him toward the murder, and he eventually kills his brother. The significance of this story is not simply that a murder occurred. It is that the first human conflict described in this way begins not with a war between civilizations, but with a conflict between two brothers.

The story can therefore be read as a moral illustration of how a destructive emotion can develop into violence. A person compares himself with another, perceives an inequality, experiences envy or resentment, becomes angry, allows that anger to dominate his judgment, and eventually turns an internal emotion into an external action. We should be careful not to claim that the Qur'an provides a complete psychological sequence explaining Qabil's mind, because it does not. But the story does reveal a central Islamic principle: the danger of evil may begin within the human being before it becomes visible in the world.

This is closely related to the Islamic concept of hasad, or destructive envy. Islam makes an important distinction between wanting something good for oneself and wanting another person's blessing to disappear. A person may see someone successful and think, “I hope I can achieve something like that.” This does not necessarily constitute hasad. But when the thought becomes, “I do not want that person to have what they have,” the emotional focus has shifted from one's own improvement to the destruction of another person's blessing. The problem is no longer simply desire. It becomes resentment toward the existence of another person's success.

Interestingly, modern psychology also studies processes that resemble this dynamic. One relevant concept is relative deprivation, which describes the experience of feeling disadvantaged when comparing oneself with others, even when one's absolute condition may not be objectively deprived. Human beings do not evaluate their lives only by asking, “What do I have?” They also ask, consciously or unconsciously, “What do I have compared with him?” or “Why does she have something that I do not?” This comparison can produce frustration, resentment, and perceptions of injustice. Relative deprivation does not automatically produce violence, but under certain social and psychological conditions it can contribute to hostility and conflict.

This suggests that perhaps hatred did not require the invention of civilization. The psychological ingredients for conflict may have existed long before civilization itself. From an evolutionary perspective, human beings developed in environments where cooperation and competition were both important for survival. Food, territory, social status, mates, and protection were valuable resources. Being able to cooperate with members of one's group was advantageous, but so was being sensitive to threats and competition. Aggression, fear, jealousy, and vigilance may therefore have roots in ancient survival mechanisms. This does not mean that humans are biologically destined to hate. Evolution also favored cooperation, empathy, attachment, reciprocity, and the ability to build relationships with others. Human nature contains capacities that can move in very different directions.

This is why the statement “humans are naturally evil” is too simplistic from both a scientific and Islamic perspective. Islam describes human beings as possessing fitrah, while also recognizing the existence of the nafs and the human capacity to follow either righteousness or corruption. Surah Ash-Shams 91:7–10 describes the human soul and its awareness of its potential for corruption and righteousness, emphasizing the success of the person who purifies it. Human beings therefore possess moral agency. Anger can appear without being chosen. Jealousy can appear without being deliberately invited. But what a person does with those emotions becomes a matter of moral responsibility.

This distinction between emotion and action is essential. A person may become angry without committing violence. A person may experience jealousy without harming the person they envy. Someone may be deeply wounded without turning their wound into revenge. In psychological terms, emotional experience and behavioral response are not identical. In Islamic terms, the existence of an impulse does not remove the responsibility to control one's actions. This is one reason why self-restraint is so important in Islamic ethics. The goal is not necessarily to become a person who never experiences anger, but to become a person who does not allow anger to become his master.

The problem becomes much larger when an individual emotion becomes part of a group identity. A person may begin with “I hate him,” but eventually a community can develop the idea of “we hate them.” This transformation can be understood through Social Identity Theory, developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner. The theory proposes that people naturally categorize themselves and others into social groups and derive part of their identity from group membership. Group identity can produce solidarity, cooperation, and belonging, which are not inherently negative. But under certain circumstances, the distinction between “us” and “them” can also contribute to prejudice, discrimination, and hostility.

Islam does not reject the existence of groups. The Qur'an explicitly recognizes differences among peoples and tribes. In Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13, humanity is described as having been created into peoples and tribes so that they may know one another. The existence of different identities is therefore not presented as the problem. The problem emerges when identity becomes arrogance, superiority, or justification for injustice. “We are different” can become “we are better,” and eventually “because they are different, anything done to them is acceptable.” That is where group identity can become dangerous.

The Qur'an directly addresses this problem in Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:8, where believers are commanded to stand firmly for justice and are warned not to allow hatred toward a people to cause them to act unjustly. This is an extraordinary principle because it does not assume that human beings will never hate anyone. Instead, it establishes a boundary around hatred: even hatred does not give a person permission to abandon justice. A person may feel hostility, but that hostility cannot become the standard by which moral judgment is made.

This principle becomes even more important when violence creates trauma. Modern research on intergenerational transmission of trauma and violence examines how the effects of severe violence can influence subsequent generations through psychological, familial, social, and cultural mechanisms. This does not mean that a child biologically inherits a specific hatred in a simple way. Rather, children can inherit stories, fears, behaviors, beliefs, family narratives, social identities, and unresolved trauma. A child may never have experienced the original violence, yet grow up hearing that another group is responsible for the suffering of their ancestors.

This creates one of the most dangerous mechanisms in human history: the enemy can be inherited even when the original conflict is forgotten. A grandfather says, “They killed our people.” His child grows up hearing the story. The child later tells the story to his own children. Eventually, a person who never met the original aggressor may feel anger toward someone who has no connection to the original event. The original victim and the original perpetrator disappear into history, but the emotional structure survives.

This is why hatred can become self-sustaining. One group remembers its suffering and explains its violence as retaliation. The other group remembers that retaliation and explains its own violence as self-defense or revenge. Both sides may sincerely believe that they are responding rather than initiating. The sentence “We did this because they did that” can therefore be repeated indefinitely. Once this happens, finding the original beginning becomes less important than understanding why the cycle continues.

The Islamic perspective provides an important answer to this problem through the distinction between justice and vengeance. Islam recognizes justice and proportionate response to wrongdoing, but it also elevates forgiveness and reconciliation. Surah Ash-Shura 42:40 states that the recompense of an evil is an evil equivalent to it, while also praising the person who forgives and seeks reconciliation. This does not erase the concept of justice. Instead, it introduces the possibility that justice does not have to culminate in endless retaliation.

This idea can be understood almost mathematically. If one act of violence produces another act of violence, and the second produces a third, then every retaliation becomes the cause of another retaliation. If no one ever refuses to continue, there is no natural stopping point. Someone must eventually make a decision that breaks the sequence. Forgiveness, reconciliation, restraint, and justice can therefore function not merely as personal virtues but as mechanisms capable of interrupting cycles of collective violence.

This philosophical problem is explored in very different ways by fictional characters such as Johan Liebert, Eren Yeager, and Thorfinn. Johan Liebert from Monster asks one of the darkest questions about human nature: how easily can an ordinary human being become a monster? Johan's story explores manipulation, trauma, identity, moral fragility, and the possibility that circumstances can expose destructive tendencies already present within human beings. His character is particularly interesting because he challenges the assumption that evil always looks extraordinary. Sometimes the frightening question is how ordinary people can be persuaded to cross moral boundaries.

Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan presents a different response to a cruel world. Eren comes to believe that the people he loves can never truly be safe while the outside world remains a threat. His solution eventually becomes extreme: if the world threatens his freedom and his people, he will destroy the world first. Philosophically, Eren represents the moment when fear and protection become fused with overwhelming violence. His tragedy is that he seeks freedom for himself and his people while simultaneously taking freedom away from others. He attempts to end his insecurity by eliminating the possibility of external threats, but the underlying human problem remains.

Thorfinn from Vinland Saga represents the opposite direction. Having experienced and participated in violence, he eventually reaches the conviction that he does not want to continue the cycle. His statement, “I have no enemies,” is not a declaration that the world contains no evil. It is a declaration that he refuses to define his own identity through hatred. In an Islamic framework, this can resonate with the ideas of self-restraint, forgiveness, justice, and refusing to answer wrongdoing with new wrongdoing. Thorfinn is not an Islamic character and his philosophy is not identical to Islamic ethics, but his transformation raises a question that is highly compatible with Islamic moral thought: Can someone who has suffered violence choose not to pass that violence to another person?

These three characters can therefore be seen as three different responses to the same fundamental problem. Johan asks whether human beings can become monsters. Eren asks whether becoming a greater monster can protect the people we love. Thorfinn asks whether someone can refuse to become a monster at all. Islamic ethics adds another dimension: human beings may possess destructive impulses, but they remain responsible for controlling them and are commanded not to allow hatred to destroy justice.

This also changes how we understand the idea of a “first hatred.” Perhaps there was never one identifiable first moment. Perhaps envy, fear, anger, and competition appeared repeatedly wherever human beings lived together. What matters is that human beings possess something that makes the cycle particularly powerful: memory and storytelling. Animals can fight over food or territory, but human beings can remember an event, give it meaning, turn it into a story, connect it to their identity, and pass it to people who were not even alive when the original event occurred.

Human beings therefore inherit more than genes. They inherit narratives.

A person can inherit the memory of a victory they never witnessed. They can inherit the grief of a tragedy they never experienced. They can inherit fear toward people they have never met. And they can inherit hatred toward an enemy they never personally encountered.

This does not mean that descendants inherit the moral guilt of their ancestors. Islam is very clear that one soul does not bear the burden of another. A child is not guilty because of the actions of their parents. But social and psychological patterns can still be transmitted between generations. This distinction is crucial: sin is not automatically inherited, but hatred can be taught.

The deeper lesson of Qabil and Habil, therefore, may not be that Qabil was the first human being to experience jealousy. The Qur'an does not make that claim. The deeper lesson may be that the human being has the capacity to transform an internal impulse into an external act, and that moral discipline exists precisely because those impulses exist.

Perhaps the greatest danger is not anger itself.

Perhaps it is the moment when anger becomes justified in the mind.

A person first thinks, “I am hurt.” Then, “They deserve punishment.” Then, “Anything I do to them is justified.” Eventually, the boundary between justice and vengeance disappears. At that point, a person no longer needs to see himself as evil. He can commit terrible acts while believing that he is defending himself, his family, his people, or his idea of justice.

This is where the Qur'anic command not to allow hatred to destroy justice becomes extraordinarily relevant. The real moral test is not how a person behaves toward someone they love. It is how they behave toward someone they hate.

Anyone can claim to believe in justice when justice benefits them.

The deeper test is whether they still believe in justice when it protects someone they consider an enemy.

Perhaps this is also where the difference between Eren and Thorfinn becomes most meaningful. Eren tries to guarantee freedom by eliminating those he believes threaten it. Thorfinn tries to create freedom by refusing to continue the logic of enemies. One seeks to end the threat. The other seeks to end his participation in the cycle.

Islam does not simply tell human beings to pretend that evil does not exist. It recognizes wrongdoing, justice, accountability, and the need to protect people from harm. But it also places limits on hatred. Justice must remain justice even when emotions are intense. Protection must not become a license for oppression. Revenge cannot become an endless inheritance.

Perhaps humanity will never eliminate jealousy, anger, fear, or hatred completely. These emotions may be deeply rooted in human psychology. But perhaps the goal was never to create a world in which nobody ever feels anger.

The goal may be to create human beings who can feel anger without becoming slaves to it.

Someone can be hurt without becoming cruel.

Someone can experience injustice without becoming unjust.

Someone can inherit trauma without turning it into hatred.

Someone can remember the past without becoming imprisoned by it.

Someone can have an enemy without allowing hatred to determine what is right and wrong.

This is where the cycle can finally stop.

Not necessarily when every enemy has been destroyed.

Not when one group has completely defeated another.

Not when everyone agrees about history.

But when one human being decides:

“What happened to me will not determine what I do to someone else.”

Perhaps that is the deeper answer to the question of where hatred began.

We may never know who first felt it.

But we can ask something far more important:

Who will be the first to refuse to pass it on?

The story of Qabil and Habil shows the destructive potential within the human heart. Evolutionary psychology helps explain why competition, threat sensitivity, and group loyalty may have deep roots in our species. Relative deprivation helps explain why comparison and perceived inequality can generate resentment. Social Identity Theory helps explain how individual hostility can become collective “us versus them” thinking. Research on intergenerational trauma helps explain how the emotional consequences of violence can survive long after the original perpetrators and victims are gone.

But none of these theories prove that humanity is destined to hate.

And Islam does not teach that human beings are prisoners of their impulses.

Human beings possess desire, but also reason.

They possess anger, but also restraint.

They experience suffering, but also forgiveness.

They form groups, but are still commanded to recognize justice.

They remember the past, but are not required to repeat it.

Perhaps the deepest freedom is therefore not the freedom to destroy those we fear.

It is the freedom to refuse to become what hatred demands that we become.

The cycle of hatred may have begun long before anyone recorded history.

But perhaps its ending can begin with something very small:

one person choosing not to pass the hatred forward.