14th Session: The Philosophy of Prophethood

In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, I have selected a few subjects regarding prophethood and, God willing, I’ll discuss and explain them with the help of some verses from the Quran. Certainly our brothers and sisters know that ‘prophethood’ is one of the principles of all religions but prophethood is a higher principle of religion, for without it, religion would become meaningless. Religion means a school of thought, a plan and a way of life that a messenger of God brings along with him, so the issue of a messenger sent by God is an intrinsic part of religion; in fact the existence and consistency of a religion depend on prophethood.

On the question of prophethood, there are many wide-spread opinions which you could read about in current books and publications. From among these common statements on prophethood, I only select one, to discuss about in a slightly different impression and argument, that is, some new explanation of the verse we recited at the beginning of this session. As you know there are numerous, theological opinions and comments about prophethood; they may be right and correct but they are not what I want to discuss in our lecture today.
Here I am not concerned with some scholastic, theological arguments about prophethood; they are rational arguments but all correct or rational discussions may not necessary for us. We must find out which of those arguments are necessary, and from amongst all necessary arguments, which is more urgent and vital for us.
As I said earlier, there may be many questions relating to the subject of prophethood, but are all of them necessary for us to discuss? As an example, there is the question of whether the Prophet was a lettered person or was be completely illiterate. Well, the verse says: “…nor had you ever penned a single line with your right hand, else the falsehood- mongers would have surely doubted.” You may ask ‘did he not read and right on purpose or was he illiterate and could not read or write? This could be the subject of a discussion. Another example may be the question of the holy Prophet’s faith or religion from among all existing faiths at that time; this could be the topic of another serious debate. But how necessary is it for us to enter into such arguments and come up with different answers? In my opinion, they are they are not at all necessary today.
Of course I am not against any scholarly research about the kind of subjects I mentioned but the most important and highly necessary fact is to comprehend the right meaning and concept of prophethood, its inception, its aim and purpose and the path of life that prophethood has shown us. The unfortunate fact is that our society suffers from a lack of understanding of the aspects of prophethood that I just mentioned. Our Islamic umma does not really know the meaning and purpose of the Prophet’s mission and that is the main cause of the miserable conditions we’re in today. If the umma knew the purpose and objective of the Prophet’s mission, then it would go after the same aims and objectives.
Thus, while we seem to be ignorant of these primary and principal truths of the Prophet’s mission, it will be ludicrous to spend our time on matters of secondary, thirdly importance! There are many books written by scholastic theological and Islamic sources which you could read and study; I have no doubt about the relative value of studying such good, beneficial sources but I still insist that their necessity and urgency are far less than the principal and fundamental questions about prophethood. And so I‘ll try my best to shed light on those more necessary aspects in our lectures.
The very first topic I want to talk about is the philosophy of prophethood. Why should we have prophets at all? Why should a person, a human try to guide humanity on behalf of God? Aren’t man’s knowledge and his human intellect sufficient for him? Why are we in need of messages between the Unseen world and our material world? This is a fundamental question and if we don’t know the answer to it, then all those other peripheral questions would be baseless. This is what we talk about today and you have a brief version of it in the papers I handed to you, and the Quranic verse we recite today relate to this important question.
I’m not going to lengthen the discussion about the philosophy of prophethood. I describe this in one short statement: the human senses, the human instincts and human intellect cannot be sufficient for human guidance, that’s all.
Well, to explain this a little more, we’ll have to point out the intrinsic potentials in certain animals; they are guided by their intrinsic senses installed in them. Most animals are guided by their instincts only; bees, ants and termites are good examples. The instinct of bees tells them to sit on certain good-smelling flowers, to suck their juice or syrup and to go back to their wondrous beehives; these small, hexagonal rooms are also built instinctively. They enter these small rooms and go out from them according to certain, fixed arrangements; they have queens and guards who perform their own specific duties. You can’t think that the bees held a summit conference representing the leaders of hives throughout the world to decide how to build up their hives. Some proposed that their tiny departments should be cubic, some others suggested that they should be built in hexagonal or octagonal forms and they did some research about these different proposals and finally the majority voted in favour of hexagonal rooms! No, their instincts dictated so, as their Creator had created them.
Now we recite the Quranic verse in this respect: “Behold, your Lord inspired the bees ‘set up your hive upon the hills, and in the trees and in the cells, that people will erect,(68) then feed on every fruit you may select, and humbly follow your Lord’s ways and byways’.” This is God’s inspiration in case of the bees; it does not mean that bees await Gabriel to descend upon them and tell them what to do! No, God Almighty has granted them special instincts to perform all their actions naturally and by instinct; they can’t do otherwise, they can’t do anything else, their behavior is static; if one bee happens to bring with it the syrup of a plant that stinks, it will be killed by the bee- guards before entering the hive.
The other outstanding example concerns ants and termite about which Mr. Maurice Metterling (1862-1949), the Belgian author and philosopher carried out detailed research and wrote two books about the lives and behaviour of these two insects; they also build their own curious nests and hives in most amazing ways. The most curious fact is that, their hives or nests have been built in the same form and structure since ancient times until today in Mesh-had! If you were to do a comparative study about this, you would found out, as informed scientists tell us, that they do not differ from one another an iota! All this is absolutely due to their God-given instincts.
Well, we do know that humans also use their instincts too but their exploitation of their instincts is far less than animals and short-lived, when you are born, your source of nourishment is the mother’s breast, and you, as a newly-born baby start to suck your mother’s breast instinctively, nobody had taught the baby to do this. As you grow up, your use of instincts gradually diminishes by your age, and gradually another factor, much more effective and stronger replaces instincts; this most strong phenomenon is human wisdom or human intelligence. Now you are a thinking man, a wise human, an intelligent person. And now it is not your instinct telling you ‘go to school early in the morning, open your shop at a certain time, or teach a certain topic at the university’; no, it is your intellect that directs you; the results of what you have learned and an increase in your knowledge let you find your own way in life.
Now the question is: Would this intelligence, this human thinking be sufficient to guide you and lead you to a happy life? I believe that if human intelligence were to answer this question, negative would be the answer; of course this intelligent person answering this question should be fair-minded and not prejudiced in any way. This would be like a court of law that decides it is not competent to rule in a given case. So is a fair-minded, intelligent person who declares ‘I am really not competent to give guidance independently. We may cite two reasons for this kind of judgment. One is that human intelligence has limits, it is finite whereas human needs are immeasurably great, in fact infinite. How could human intelligence find out about all human needs, problems or pains? No, it is too weak, too limited to recognize all human physical, spiritual and communal needs in order to find proper cures for them or to pass perfect laws about them.
We find another reason when we study historical and scientific realities. Did the best human brains find any ultimate solutions? Great thinkers and philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle failed to prescribe any recipe for the happiness and salvation of humanity. For years they carried out extensive researches for such a purpose to no avail; only Plato managed to come up with his Eutopia, a place of ideal well-being, an absolutely subjective perception which could not be put into practice for a moment throughout the world. And if we take a glimpse at the changing world since the age of Plato, his opinions in this respect look unacceptable or even ludicrous.
You may notice how various rational or philosophical schools often contradict each other in their philosophical interpretations of the world and the question of existence. That is why we claim that as long as humanity is not linked to or inspired by a sublime source far higher than human intelligence, it could not attain guidance, salvation and happiness and here is when we are badly in need of prophethood; this is the real meaning of prophethood. It is a higher power and much stronger guidance than guidance by instincts or limited, human wisdom. What does this higher guidance do? Does it compete with your senses? Does it neutralize your instincts? Does it stop the working of your intelligence? No, it does none of these. Its mission is to guide your power of intellect and, in the words of Imam Ali, the commander of the faithful (AS), ‘it brings out the intellects buried in the ground’; this means that it helps the intellect, buried by bands of Pharaohs, Nimrods, the wealthy and the powerful, to reappear and revive. The prophets’ mission is to dig out these intellectual treasures. Pharaoh does not like people to think and to exploit their God-given intellects; he wants people to live in darkness and ignorance to guarantee his despotic, godless rule. The prophets, on the opposite hand, polish people’s intellects and guide them to use their human intelligence wisely.
Thus we notice that God’s prophets, with their received Revelations, are not fighting people’s intelligence. The person, who thinks that religion and intelligence contradict each other, either does not know God’s religion or suffers from some defect in his intellect! But those with proper intelligence who have also studied the principles of religions properly know that they are not incompatible, and that religion is not against human knowledge or science. Some people who protest: ‘You must just believe in religion, you should not look for reason and logic in this respect and not ask for the philosophy of religion, because these demands lower the high status of religion, are really ignorant. A rightful religion and a perfect intellect do not oppose each other. There are some great thinkers and scientists who well understand the Unity of God, the necessity of prophethood and the philosophies and values found in daily prayers, in fasting and in giving alms.
It is through our knowledge and scientific research today that we have come to know the harms, the hurts, the injuries and awful effects of consuming alcohol on human body and soul, on his nerves and on the general conditions of the public. So why should I hesitate to read this Quranic verse aloud: “…indeed intoxicants, gambling, sacrifices unto stones and the use of dividing arrows are all abominations and Satan’s own handiwork! Thus do refrain from these deeds…”. Why can’t we respect what human knowledge has found out? Why can’t we say that alcohol drinking is a satanic act full of all sorts of harms? Only satans are pleased when you commit such things.
You may have heard the narration attributed to Imam Sajaad: ‘You cannot comprehend God’s religion through your intelligence’. This has often been wrongly interpreted. The Imam’s statement means that you are not able to find out about all religions injunctions. Why can’t we do this? Well, let me give you some simple examples. If we don’t have a Quranic verse about some subjects or no authentic narration about them, how do we, as an example, come to know that the noon prayers consist of four parts (raka’s) if the Quran did not inform us (on the time of prayers): “Keep up the prayers, from when the Sun goes down, moving towards the falling of the night, besides the Reading at the dawn…”. If the Quran did not inform us about this, we could not, through our common sense, know when to do our prayers. These are simple examples; what the Imam talked about were the injunctions and teachings of religions. But some ignorant people, while defending religion, enthusiastically cry ‘don’t you philosophize about religion!’ Yet, the question remains: Why shouldn’t we explain the philosophy of religion? Of course I confess that what we explain and interpret may be a very small part of the sublime teachings of religion, no doubt about this. But then other people may have complementary opinion and they all together may lead us to a better understanding of our religion and the Quran. This trend has been witnessed in the history of mankind and because of this continuous trend, our understanding of religion today is far deeper than in the past and humanity is now better placed in comprehending religion than earlier times when no such discussions were carried out.
Thus I respect: religion is not the adversary of wisdom and intelligence, it is not there to kick out human intellect of human life. Religion is with us to help and guide intelligence. Why does it play this important role? Because human wisdom may be polluted by carnal desires, by greed, by evil purposes, by fears and by sexual wants; these factors do harm human intelligence and do not let it judge things correctly and truthfully. Religion removes all such negative, harmful factors and strengthens the spotless brains and human judgment.
The Quran is full of such statements as: “Don’t you think properly, don’t you use your brains, don’t you exploit your power of intelligence”. How many times do we come across such sentences in the Quran: “Indeed there is a Sign for the wise, knowledgeable people?” And we have surely heard the Narration: ‘God has granted two proofs to the people’; they are the Prophet and human intelligence.
Well, I think I have said enough about wisdom and intelligence. Let’s then sum up what was already said for: mankind cannot attain happiness, salvation and prayers without the guidance of divine Revelations; religion does not throw instincts and human senses out of human lives but this guidance strengthens and helps human instincts, human senses and human intelligence and purifies them; this is the role of Revelation and the philosophy of prophethood.
The reason for this is that humans are not perfect and that human knowledge and insight are not sufficient means to guide us along the whole path of life. According to famous Persian poet, Hafiz ‘a Hand from the Unseen should be stretched to guide us’. This does not mean that when I am hungry, I should await an invisible Hand to come to help me! Or if I encounter an injustice, say, an innocent person being wronged, I just do nothing and wait for that hand to appear and help the wronged person, or never do my Islamic duties such as ‘enjoining the right and prohibiting wrong’ and wait for that Hand again!
At this juncture we should pay attention to some Quranic verses: “Did you see him who did deny the Judgment Day? He is the one who drives the orphans away, and urges not the feeling of the poor.” Further we read in the Quran: “They shall reply: We never did a prayer, nor did we ever feed the poor, and we denied the Day of Reckoning.” Here we find out that deniers of religion and non-believers are those who do not try to help and feed the poor and do not encourage others to do so and, from a deeper comprehension of the Quran, they are people who do not try to eradicate hunger and poverty; they don’t make a move in this direction and await the invisible Hand to do it for them! I think, if such a Hand emerges, it will first grab these deniers and punish them for their idleness and carelessness. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, it will be the Hand of prophethood and prophets that come into the world to guide humanity and to strengthen their wisdom.
There are several other questions regarding prophethood some of which I have noted down on the sheets I handed to you; questions such as: Where is the beginning of the prophet’ missions? From what stage do they begin their mission to reform the affairs of mankind? What is the nature of their mission in the process, and where does their mission end? Does it never come to an end? Did the prophet, John the Baptist’s mission come to end when he was beheaded at the court of the godless despot of the time? I will, God willing, talk about some of these questions in coming days. On the philosophy of prophethood, what I said so far seems to be sufficient and I hope all of you, who seem to be alert and interested listeners, are now quite clear about it. If you have further questions, I’ll be happy to answer them later.
Another Quranic verse I intend to explain today is the famous verse which says: “Humanity had been a single Umma…”. Humanity was just a single group, a single community or a single society. What does that mean? Quran interpreters have interpreted this in different ways. Two interpretations are given by Ayatollah Taaleghani in his book “A Glimmer of Light from the Quran”; you could buy the book and read it. I have a third interpretation which I will shortly tell you about. But recently it has become fashionable among some intellectuals to claim that ‘the single umma’ refers to the primitive human Communes where all people worked in cooperation and partnership for the benefit of all the Commune and members benefited from their collective hunting and labour equally; but there is no proof for this hypothesis. Surely we are not going to barrow some concepts from other schools of thought and stick them to our Quran. What we and many interpreters understand from the verses of the Quran is sufficient for us, we are not in need of some concepts from other cultures and schools to decorate our Quran with them!
Well, as I said, there have been two interpretations for the verse “Humanity had been a single umma”, and today I present you with another interpretation as far as I comprehend the verse. I believe that people then were in an equal state regarding their needs and potentials. All humans possessed intelligence, they had the five senses and even a sixth sense, they all became thirsty and hungry and had sexual desires, they were all in need of clothing, housing and the like. All their needs were of the same colour, shape and nature.
We may now cite the case of a well-bred person from an influential, wealthy family and the son of a poor working family who has to work in some squalid conditions. Does this mean that the former possessed higher, intrinsic qualities than the latter? Not at all, this means that his potential and his God-given qualities were not exploited. Let’s cite a very simple example. We have many oil wells in the south of our country and presently the oil we extract is being used for internal consumption and for exports. Yet there may be many oil deposits in other parts of our land that have not yet been spotted and exploited and maybe their oil could be a better and richer oil. The same is true about people who did not have the opportunity to develop their talents.
Therefore I say that humanity had naturally been a single umma with equal needs and equal God-given gifts. Then, as I have noted down in the papers I handed to you: “And Allah sent forth prophets to deliver tidings glad and warnings and with them a Scripture based on Truth…”. God Almighty chose some from among mankind, possibly with certain high qualities, as His prophets and sent them forth. What were they to do? To give the good news of Paradise, of happiness and salvation, of establishing security, peace and welfare on the earth, of annihilation of poverty, fear, hopelessness and ignorance and the establishment of a godly order and truthful sovereignty throughout the world, and the ultimate good news is that of entering the Paradise of God. Together with these glad tidings, the prophets also give warning of ending up in Hell, of evil kind of living on earth, of domination of poverty and ignorance, of falling into the abyss of corruption and of human talents and instincts going astray; the prophets are true heralds of good news and true givers of warnings.
On the phrase “and a Scripture based on Truth”, I do not say much because I have explained the word ‘Hagh’ (truth) on several previous occasions. Briefly ‘the Truth’ is that which suits the nature of humanity and the nature of existing worlds. Prophets speak of Truth because they guide humanity through their true nature and constitution to develop their God-given gifts, instincts and intellects and help them towards spiritual perfection.
Then in the same verse we read: “…He sent the Scripture based on Truth in order to judge disputes among the people…”. So the Scripture or the Book is sent down to judge the cases of disputes, quarrels and differences among the people. Naturally there are differences and disagreements among members of any community. What do we understand from this? We understand that the rule of prophets does not make them personal rulers or despots; their rule is by the Book, by the laws and injunctions of the Book and in one word, the rule of law.
The verse goes on to say: “… but disputes arose among the people who were given it, after they received clear signs…”. Here we notice that most of those who entered into disputes were the same people to whom the Scriptures were given! And what does this demonstrate to us? it proves the question of distortions in divine Scriptures. The prophets bring with them the Scriptures containing divine laws and injunctions and then the same people of the Book began to interpret things differently and distorted the divine Revelations according to their whims, interests and perverted opinions. We can clearly see that these people call themselves the followers of certain religions but they don’t really follow the laws and injunctions of those religions and often try to distort them.
And now we read the rest of the verse: “…because they wanted to oppress each other; thus Allah, by His Grace, gave guidance to those who were believers in that Truth which was disputed, for it is God who does guide, whom He please, to the right path”. As the verse says they disputed and fought one another through enmities and oppressive tendencies but God did guide those who were true believers.
What I said so far was an explanation of the Quranic verses our dear reciter chanted for you. I meant to talk a little more about the last phrases in that Quranic verse but I feel too tired and ask you to excuse me as I intended to explain those verses of Sura Jumu’a, which I have jotted in the papers I handed to you. Fortunately as I have often commented about this Sura which we always read at Friday evening prayers, I ask our dear reciter to just chant these verses: “in the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, whatever is there in the Skies, and everything on earth declares God’s Glory and His Praise, the Sovereign Lord, the Holiest, in Might Exalted, the Most Wise.” Thus we now know the philosophy of prophethood and we do understand that if this ‘mother of principles’ or prophethood was not there, then religions, lacking messengers sent by God, would be meaningless.