Taking the Higher Road
When [someone who’s been wronged] pardons and forgives his adversary, [that] adversary of his feels in his soul that [the one who forgave him] is above him and has made gains over him, and he then keeps seeing himself as below him.
This by itself, in terms of virtue and high position, is enough [to convince one] to pardon and forgive.
Jāmiʿ Al-Masāʾil, vol. 1, p. 174.