In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, our discussion today, following the previous lectures, is to define the clear mission of the prophets to see, what they were doing, what was the purpose of their mission, how they continue their divine duties and how they guarantee the success of this missions.
I have fully explained these issues in our previous meeting but if they are not clear to some of you, it means that probably I have not succeeded in making them more clear. Today’s discussion, however, centres around the social aspect of what the divine prophets do or the establishment of a monotheistic community, social order, administration, and the annihilation of the backward, ignorant and polytheistic order and in one word, bringing about a great, social uprising.
Now the outstanding question is this: where is the starting point in their missions. This is a most important question because in almost all projects, plans and programs devised by human groups, political parties, governments and private entrepreneurs, you notice the basic question of the starting points. If this is correctly and properly thought of, then one may hope for its being successful, but if the starting point is badly chosen, the devised plan or project may face all sorts of impeding problems.
Well as far as the divine prophets are concerned, we should find out about the starting points of their immensely important missions. The discovery of this is also greatly instructive for all of us, and if we find out that we all have followed the same or a similar way, it will be a great useful lesson for us as their followers. As I wrote down in the papers I gave you, their starting-points, most briefly said, were the clear expression of the fundaments and the spirit of their school of thought; they were not shy with expressing the essence of their religion at the very beginning of their divine missions. They would never preoccupy the people’s minds and souls with some confusing or secondary slogans to deceive people for a while as many politicians or demagogues do.
The prophets never behaved like that. They did, from the very beginning, express their ultimate goal honestly and truthfully, and that goal, in one word, was monotheism.
Again, as I said in details in previous meetings, monotheism is everything in their school of thought because cognition of God Almighty is the factor that spiritually elevates mankind, so it is the ultimate objective of all prophets. Monotheism is also the plan of the prophets for creating a divine atmosphere and establishing a just, classless society without any forms of exploitation and oppression; this would be the environment for the spiritual and material progress and creation of truly, elevated humans. Monotheism means a society or community in which only God rules and no others could ever call people to obey them, even the prophets are not raised to call people to themselves as their masters.
At this point, let’s refer to a conversation between God and Jesus Christ as reported in the Quran: God addresses Jesus “O Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to the people: Worship me and my mother as deities along with Allah?” and Jesus so answers: “…Glory to You, I would never say what I had no right to say; had I said so, you would have surely known, You do know what is in my mind…”. Thus Jesus refutes what is attributed to him and says that he has never given such awful instruction. There is another verse in the holy Quran saying that no prophet has the right to order people ‘to be my servants’: “No man to whom God gives the Scriptures, Judgment and the Prophetic office, would ever say to people: be worshippers of me instead of God!” This clearly shows that prophets not only do not call people to be their servants but that they don’t have such a right at all. So when those divine prophets who receive God’s revelations could not rule over people without God’s permission, then nobody else should be allowed to govern the world which is under the domination of the Almighty; the prophets may only call people to obey God’s laws and injunctions. All politicians, all political powers and all oppressors and despots who have imposed their wishes and decisions on humanity in world history, were usurpers and their actions have been contrary to the principle of monotheism because monotheism defies such oppressive behaviours. This is an obvious matter in the Quran and if some people do not recognize this, it simply means that they have not studied the Quran properly.
As I previously mentioned in our discussion of monotheism, the divine prophets, when they begin their missions, the very first thing they declare is: there are no gods but God Almighty. And as soon as they declare this, all people, and their later friends and thin foes immediately recognize what the mission is about. This is a most sensitive point and I ask you to pay particular attention to it. Our holy Prophet, after receiving Revelations at the Herra Cave and declaring his prophetic mission, was immediately faced with incredible animosities of certain groups. Of course their enmities appeared in different forms but those who did understand the goal of his mission, immediately began to oppose him. On the other hand, those who belonged to the exploited groups or those who had a higher intelligence immediately recognized the meaning of his message. Both opposing groups found out what the holy Prophet was going to do about the world they lived in. yet in our age and under present conditions, there are people who do not understand this most important part of the Prophet’s mission; something that most of the uneducated, common people quickly understood at the time of the holy Prophet.
But under the present conditions, I must stand here for hours and try to make it clear, through all sorts of reasons and arguments, that the spirit of monotheism rejects all sources of power and domination except that of God Almighty. All the wealthy, powerful and influential leaders of the dominant Quraish Clan got the message; this man who says: God is above all and there are no other gods, he is not inviting people to a certain religious creed, no, he is inviting the masses to a big, social change. The opposition of these Quraish gentlemen (!) was not rooted in their love and respect for their idols of wood and stone at all, no, they were not so faithful to these false items of worship. In fact we have not witnessed in the history of mankind such truthful, faithful persons among the upper classes who were truly devoted to their man-made gods or their so-called religion; historical experience shows that they were hypocritical liars. What they really cared about was the superior, unjust, social positions in the society that monotheism would abolish. The faith among the dominant, wealthy, influential groups was not so strong to motivate them to oppose the holy Prophet because he had belittled their idols. Certainly they had some traditional attachment and ignorant prejudice regarding these idols, but their social status and privileges were far above such considerations.
They clearly saw that a monotheistic system will put an end to their lordships; they clearly understood that the establishment of a monotheistic community meant the absolute governance of God and obedience to the Almighty only. They could clearly envisage that such a monotheist system meant the equality of all people in the sight of God, a society in which there should not exist any form of discrimination, oppression and class or clan differences, they opposed the Prophet because they understood what the Prophet was meant to create. They were just like Pharaoh, Nimrud and the Israelite chiefs facing Jesus Christ in former times; these figures and classes firmly opposed all divine prophets as soon as they declared that there was only one God to whom mankind and the whole universe belonged. As soon as they heard this sublime slogan from the mouths of divine prophets, they lost no time to oppose them, to trouble them and even murder them.
So, we do see how divine prophets begin their mission: their first announcement is about the Unity of God which is also their last word, that is, their very last word is their very first word, not like some political parties and politicians in our world today who preoccupy the minds and souls of the people by their empty, useless, constantly-changing mottoes, slogans and so-called programs; after a while the public would find out that all those slogans were only as means for them to gain power and acquire wealth and other benefits, and not for the good and the welfare of the common people.
With divine prophets, however, the case is absolutely different; they truthfully inform the people, right from the beginning of their missions, what their find objective is.
Well, you may ask: what’s the use of such method or behavior? Why can’t they adopt a gradual approach, keep people guessing for some time as to their goal, tell them entertaining stories and pretend that, in the long run, they aim at improving the quality of their lives. What’s wrong with this approach? Well, the short answer to these questions is that the initial phase of the mission of God’s prophets is to raise the consciousness and insight of the masses; a blind, unconscious kind of religious faith is of no use. God’s religion wants people to know where they are going and what they are after, right from the beginning. Arab Bedouins and desert nomads came to meet the Prophet and after some dialogue with him converted to Islam. They came to know, from the very first hour, what they were expected to do and what they should be after; they were not now following the Prophet blindly. All those later efforts, struggles and sacrifices they carried on, were based on this new light and insight granted to them by the holy Prophet. History of human movements and revolutions bear witness that some believers and combatants, when not aware of their goal and purpose, gave up their strivings at the first phases of the struggle, and this is quite natural.
Imagine you happen to be walking in a street and you see a group of people running, you may follow them and run after them, but after a while, you may say to yourself: why am I running and why should I be out of breath running after this group. Imagine the runners were engaged in some sporting game, or running to reach the train station, etc. This means they know what their goal or destination is, so they are tirelessly running, and even if exhausted, they exert some extra effort to reach their goals at any cost. But you, when aimlessly following others, you’ll ask yourself: what the hell am I doing? And even if you don’t happen to think so, there will be others who reproach you and say: whither are you going? For what purpose? Are you after your beloved?! Well, at this point, many people go cold and stop, but if you are clear about your goal, you’ll never atop despite intolerable hardships.
You must read the story of young men such Ammar and Yaaser in the early days of the advent of Islam and the accounts about their devoted parents who did not give up Islam under severest tortures at the hands of the chiefs of Meccan polytheists. There is a most interesting book by, I think, Taha Husain, the Egyptian scholar, which is brilliantly translated into Persian; I’m trying to remember its title (someone in the audience,: it’s called ‘ The Truthful Promise); yes, that’s the title. The author artfully and brilliantly describes the deep, unshakable faith of these people, especially the parents who died under torture but stuck to their monotheism.
Now we clearly see why God’s prophets say the last word at the very inception of their missions; they simply declare their final end and do not hide anything from the people, because they want the people to embrace their religious consciously and with transparent awareness. This is exactly the opposite of what goes on in our world today as far as religions are concerned: in the existing religions today, awareness, knowledge and cognition seem to be equal to crimes; it is also very interesting that today some religious persons or some secular, anti-religious elements have a common worldview: they believe that belief in religion means a lack of understanding; and religion in their opinions means ‘closing your eyes and ears, no deep thinking or contemplation, no, in their opinions religion is the blind following of what the chiefs, rabbis and others declare, no reasoning, no logic and no thinking. You just have to have a blind faith and follow the religious leaders. We all have heard that on minor questions of religions we have to follow the opinions of the religious specialists, and therefore, we tend to think that we have to follow them blindly even regarding the fundamental questions of religion! This understanding absolutely contradicts the belief in truthfulness of any religion.
Belief in a religion should essentially be associated with consciousness, knowledge, insight, discernment and intelligence. In our own religion of Islam, we don’t say to people: you accept it for the present, then go and do some research to know its truthfullness! No, not at all, if you do believe in this religion blindly, you should know that the religion has not welcomed you at all. Islam sets a great value on cognition and intelligent discernment and it sets even a greater value on discerning people, because our religion wants all people to consciously have God in mind from the beginning; that’s why the divine prophets declare their first and last objective right from the inception of their missions.
In our discussion today we are trying to reach some conclusions. One is the question, that I’ve already explained, that our religion looks at consciousness or intelligent cognition as a fundamental principle and does not recognize those lacking this necessary condition as true Muslims.
The second point is that all followers of the prophets, not only the religious scholars, are the heirs and inheritors of divine prophets. Anyone who takes some steps in the direction of monotheism and believes in it as a God-approved resolution, be he a follower of Abraham, Moses, Jesus or other divine prophets, is their inheritor. Now we all, as followers of God’s prophets, how do we want to start our religious missions? Are there any better, more decisive and more fruitful ways or methods to follow than those practiced by the prophets?
Nowadays, when we start talking about religion why don’t we raise the issue of monotheism or the Unity of God? This is a vital question. Why don’t we follow the divine prophets? Our aim is to turn all people into true believers or invite mankind to Islam, why do we choose ways and methods contrary or different from those of the prophets? We should not do this. We want to bring about this prophetic, social, monotheistic upraising throughout the world. Certainly this is not an easy task but, in the least, we could inform people in the world that the ultimate, divine purpose of all God’s prophets was to bring about such a monotheistic revolution.
Why is it that many of our religious preachers and activists start their work with some issues of secondary importance or very minor questions? Sometimes we are told: why don’t you say these things to those propagators of Islam throughout the country? My answer to this objection is: how could I contact these numerous figures and try to convince them?!
Of course, I am a firm believer in good, religious preaching and publicity and most people at our meeting know me through our previous lectures in the mosques; I also do believe in our grand, Shi’ite religious leaders and scholars and I think if we didn’t have them, our circumstances would have been worse than they are! It is useful when some researchers, young or old, author certain articles on Islam but these people are usually amateurs; we do, however, need professional specialists in religious areas who are found among our respected, Shi’ite scholars, spiritual leaders and our theological schools.
Among the Shi’ite clergy, there are many who preach as true followers of the holy Prophet and his way of publicity for Islam, but there are others whose starting-points are not similar to the work and method of divine prophets; in their eyes some questions of really lesser values are more important than the clear description of monotheism and the most fundamental teaching of Islam. They are quite happy to discuss the behaviour of Nakeer and Munkar whether they stand on your right or left side or whether they sit down in front of you and what is their nature and character! These are issues that have no relevance to or no effect on Muslim people in their adherence to Islam; they have nothing to do with practicing Islam and carrying out our Islamic obligations, but some clerics believe that knowing about such trivial matters is among the necessities of religion, but they are not ready to think about monotheism and its pursuant effects for the establishment of a special, social system. What I am saying is that monotheism should be the first and foremost principle we talk about.
Even if we cannot exactly follow what the divine prophets did, we could at least declare and express that such was their methods and behaviours, such were their goals and ultimate purpose. But we notice that some religious orators prefer to talk in length about very trivial matters as whether the holy Prophet had a shadow or not or whether he could see things behind him when walking. If there are such narrations about the holy Prophet, they certainly mean that he was most intelligent, smart and that who could immediately find out what was going on around him, not having eyes on the back of his head! You may have noticed that some people are so careless, thoughtless or inattentive that if you walk behind them for some time and make fun of them by certain grimaces, they won’t notice it at all. And there are others who are most attentive and immediately notice what’s going on around them. Many writers and commentators have confirmed that the holy Prophet was the wisest and the most intelligence person at his time; some of the books written by these eminent authors go back a thousand years. As I said some religious orators are willing to talk for hours about trivial matters I mentioned, but don’t tell you about the cause and goal of the Prophet. Questions as: what was the Prophet’s idea about the social situation, about ruling the community and its administration, and about the ways he enlightened people? Whether he was after training and enlightening some individuals or he meant to enlighten the whole community? These questions are never raised or answered by those orators at all.
The Islamic world today does not approve of any delay in fulfilling one’s Islamic obligations and commitments; those unimportant questions should be set aside for the day we have nothing else to do. Today our Islamic world is in a diseased state and we ought to try our best to save it. And the last word in this respect is: if some people do not like our religious advice, let them not be displeased with us, because, as we have been taught, ‘the best people are those who do not loathe hearing advices’.
Well, I think I have explained enough about monotheism as the starting- point of the missions of God’s prophets. One of the Quranic verses, which I wrote down in the papers given to you, is the verse 36 of Sura Al-Nahl: “Indeed in every people We raised a messenger…”. What was the purpose of this ‘raising’? What was the message of each prophet? “…to worship God and eschew Evil (evil tyrants)…”. This means that the very first thing the prophets advised the people was to worship the Almighty and to abstain from taaghoot (evil forces and evil tyrants). Taaghoot is God’s rival or God’s enemy on earth that rejects all God’s laws and injunctions. Who is taaghoot exactly? Sometimes it is your own self as in the famous Narration: ‘your worst enemy is your own selfish ego’; yes, it could be your whimsical, carnal desires. Arrogance and evil ambitions could be other forms of taaghoot. It also takes other forms in the external world, that is, evil, godless forces that dominate and oppress humanity.
We then read in the same verse: “… among these people some were guided by God, and there were some on whom Deviation became inevitable…”. Then the Quranic verse invites all people to: “…travel through the land, and see what was the end of the rejection band.” This means: study the past, see what happened to those who rejected the guidance of God’s prophets, find out about civilizations gone with the wind, the ruined cities and countries, Babylonia, Assyria, Chaldea and others. Remember the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, nothing left of them but some names and some artifacts. Our Quran narrates the fates of such evil administrations.
All those who do not listen to advices of God’s prophets are condemned to perish. This is not a question of miracles. Certainly in ancient times there were miraculous events because the evil forces had to be done away with by some storms, earthquakes and the like to serve as examples for others. But, this is a true universal injunction to the end of the world. Any umma not choosing to walk on the path of divine prophets will face decadence and perdition. This does not mean that all members of that umma will face destruction and death, no, it means that their domination and their kind of oppressive rule will be abolished; and the remaining people will be integrated in other nations. Could we today point at the national-geographic areas wherein nations or ummas of Babylon, Assyria and Chaldea were living. Where are they now? Let’s repeat the Quranic verse: “…what was the end of the rejection band…?”
At this point we should refer to some verses in the Sura Al-A’raaf. In Sura Al-Nahl, we were informed about the general fact: “Indeed we raised messengers in every nation…”. But in Sura A’raaf, the Quran cites many prophets who brought the same message to mankind: “Noah We sent to his own people, and he said: ‘O My people, worship God, you have no God but Him; indeed I fear for you of the torture of a Day of Dread.” As you see, the first thing he says is about God the One and that there is nothing and nobody to be served or worshipped instead of Him and that he is really concerned for the fate of his people on the Day of Resurrection. Well, as you know, they don’t believe him and later face the Noah’s Flood. And then the Sura cites the example of the Aad people saying: “And unto Aad, We seat their brother, Hood; he said: ‘My people, worship God, indeed there is no God but He…”. As far as we know the Aad are an ancient people residing in Arabia, possibly pre-historic; it’s not yet discovered when their age was, most probably sometime after Noah. We have another piece of information about them in the Sura Shu’ara, Aya 149 which says: “…they happily (artistically) hewed out their houses in the mountains.” Building houses in the mountains could have occurred in the late Stone Age period, according to some scientists. Anyway, all this shows that they were very ancient people and that a prophet was raised among them by the name of Hood and he warned this people to worship God the One because there are no other gods at all.
There is a most significant point in this account which really nullifies the theory of those people, who claim that monotheism, and religion in general, came about as a gradual result of the natural conditions of humanity and their ignorance; and that their ignorant circumstances changed and gradually led them to monotheism. But we see that divine prophets of very ancient times also brought the same message: “O My people, do worship God the One, there are no other gods…”. Yet some sociologists claim, without offering any proofs, that religion came about because they were backward and ignorant, that all ancient tribes were first polytheists and that monotheism was a very later development. As I said they offer no shred of evidence about what they claim.
Let me cite an example to make the matter clearer: imagine some expert trying to describe this Imam Hassan Mosque in which I am talking to you; he writes ‘this mosque has beautifully-painted walls, the floor is covered with marble stones and with chandeliers hanging down from the ceiling; he has never been in this mosque but writes about it on the basis of guess-work. Then once he happens to pass by this mosque and notices that the mosque has no ceiling and no walls (laughter of the audience!) When their approach to sociological questions is based on conjecture, their ultimate findings become ludicrous and laughable. They talk and write on the interpretation of history, but omit a big part of it including the history of religions. Monotheistic concepts have existed since seven or eight thousand years ago or even more. But they pompously claim that first there was polytheism and other godless creeds and monotheism appeared in very later times.
Anyway, let’s go back to the verse we were explaining. The next verse say: ‘‘…do you not fear God?…”. Hood the prophet tried to make them understand what unity of God meant. But the pagan chiefs among his people said: “…we see that you are foolishly in error, and we do think that you’re a liar”. This is the kind of accusations that pagans and disbelievers have always thrown at the divine prophets or anybody who spoke the truth; they also called him ‘stupid’! Hood said to them: “…My people, I am not in error foolishly, but I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds, and I’m your most sincere adviser. Why on earth do you wonder that an admonition should come unto you from your Lord, through a man from your midst, and that he be warning you?…”. He tells people that he is their real, well-wisher, that he wants their progress and happiness and that an ordinary person from among them has come to lead and guide them towards the path of God Almighty. Then he cites for them an historical event: “…remember that He made you heirs of Noah’s people, and He gave you a stature far greater than any nation, therefore remember Allah’s every favour that you may prosper.” So he attracts their attention to the bounties and blessings God has granted them and that if they remember these precious gifts of God to them, they will be more prosperous and receive salvation.
And now let’s pay special attention to what the pagan chiefs say in response to his kind, godly words: “Oh, have you come to make us worship Allah alone, and give up all the gods our fathers used to worship…”. As you clearly see the enemies of divine prophets immediately sense what it means to worship God alone! They at once know that if they believe in him, they should do away with all those animate and inanimate false gods they serve! So they give him an ultimatum: “… well then, let that which you threaten us with, fall on us if you are a truthful man.”
The divine prophet now has to give them his last warning: “You have indeed incurred the curse and the wrath of God already; You dispute with me about some names that you and your fathers and forefathers coined, for which no sanction came from Allah…”. He tells them: You have fabricated some things with your own hands, then you and your brainless fathers put some ridiculous names on them and you worship them; and on behalf of them, you dispute with me and reject the monotheism I offer you. And then he gives them his very last word: “…thus you just wait and I too, will wait along with you.” And you all know the final event of God’s wrath engulfing them all.