Internal and External Plagues
The dangers that threaten Islam as a dear phenomenon, have been predicted by Allah before it came into existence and or from the time of its coming into being, and the means to deal with those dangers have also been taken into consideration and devised in Islam itself and in this collection itself. Like a healthy body, in which Allah Almighty has placed its defensive powers inside it, or like a properly-working machine, that the engineer and the manufacturer have provided spare parts for its maintenance in it. Islam is a phenomenon and like all phenomena, dangers threaten it and it needs a means to resist these dangers. Allah Almighty has put this means within Islam itself. But what are those dangers? There are two major dangers: One is the “external enemy” and the second one is “internal disintegration”.
The “outside enemy” means the one that targets from outside the boarders, with a variety of weapons, the entity of a [ruling] system with its thoughts, ideological infrastructural system, laws, and everything. What does from the outside mean? Not from outside the country. From outside the system; even though it is inside the country. There are enemies who regard themselves as strangers from the system and are opposed to it. They are outside. They are aliens. They are working hard in order to destabilize a system and destroy it. With the sword, with fire arms, with the most modern materialistic weapons, and through propaganda and money and whatever is at their disposal. This is one kind of enemy.
This second type of enemy and plague is the internal annihilation, meaning [the enemy] within the system; which does not involve the aliens, it involves the insiders. The insiders in a system may, due to fatigue, due to a mistake in understanding the correct path, due to being overcome by carnal feelings, and due to looking at the material attractions and overestimating them, suddenly become plagued from within. This type [of enemy] is, of course, more dangerous than the first one.
These two types of enemy–internal and external plagues–are present in every system, in every association, and in every phenomenon. Islam has found solutions for dealing with both of these plagues and calls for jihād (holy struggle). Jihād is not merely limited to [confront] the external enemy.
«جاهِدِ الكُفّارَ وَ المُنافِقين»
[Struggle against the disbelievers and the hypocrites.] The hypocrite puts himself within the system. So, one must struggle against all of them. Jihād is for the enemy who–out of faithlessness and enmity–wants to invade this system. Also, in order to deal with that internal disunion and inner disintegration, there are valuable ethical teachings that show the world to the human beings as it relay is and make him realize that:
﴿اعلَمُوا أنّما الحَياةُ الدّنيا لَعِبٌ وَ لَهوٌ وَ زينةٌ وَ تَفاخُرٌ بَينَكُم وَ تَكاثُرٌ فِي الأموالِ وَ الأولاد﴾
[Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children], till the end of the verse. This means that even if these fineries, these manifestations and these worldly pleasures, are necessary for you, and even if you must benefit from them, even if your lives have become dependent upon them, and there is no shadow of a doubt of that, and you must provide them for yourself, but you should know that regarding them as absolute, and blindly going after them and leaving your goals to be forgotten is very dangerous.
Amīr al-Mu’minīn (P.B.U.H.) is the lion of the battle field against the enemy and when he spoke, one expected half of his speech to be about jihād, war, championship, and heroism; however when we look at the narrations and sermons of his Nahj al-Balāgha, we will see that most of his speeches and recommendations of his holiness are about asceticism, piety, morality, the rejection and belittlement of the world, and honoring the spiritual and sublime values of humanity.
The story of Imam Ḥusayn (P.B.U.H.) is a combination of these two sections. That is to say, where both fighting against the enemy and struggling against the inner self (nafs) were manifested in the highest level, was the incident of ‘Āshūrā. Meaning that Allah Almighty knows that this incident will occur, and a sublime example must be provided and that sublime example be set as a role model. Like the champions of countries become popular in a particular field and this champion will become the encourager of others to follow his footsteps in that field of sport. Of course, this is a small example to approximate our minds. The incident of the ‘Āshūrā is a great movement along with strenuous efforts on two fronts. Both fighting with the internal and external enemy, which is the corrupt system of the caliphate and those seeking worldly gains who were attached to this powerful system; that is, the power that the Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.) had employed to save human beings, they wanted it in order to move contrary to the path of Islam and the holy Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.); and also in the internal front which, in those days, society in general had already moved toward internal corruption.
The second point, in my opinion, is more important. Some point in time had elapsed; the period of hardships of the initial task had passed. Conquests had been accomplished, the spoils (of war) were obtained, and the range of the country became wider. Foreign enemies, here and there, had been conquered. Ample spoils were being circulated within the country. Some had become rich and some had been elevated to the aristocracy class; meaning that after Islam had eradicated, a new class of nobles arose in the Muslim world. Elements with the name of Islam, with positions and Islamic titles–the son of such and such companion, the son of the holy Prophet’s (P.B.U.H. & H.H.) friend, the son of certain relative of the Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.)–engaged in the Improper and inappropriate deeds. Some of their names have been recorded in history. Some have been found who had set the dowry of their daughter at one million dinars, one million mithqāls of pure gold, instead of the traditional woman’s dowry (mahr al-nisā) which was 480 dirhams that was decided upon by the holy Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.) and Amīr al-Mu’minīn (P.B.U.H.) and Muslims in the early Islam. Who were they? The sons of nobles, for example, Muṣ‘ab b. Zubair and the like.
1993/26/01
The incidents started less than one decade after the death of the Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.). Initially, those who first embraced Islam–ranging from the companions, followers and those who took part in wars during the time of the Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.)–enjoyed privileges, one of which was benefitting financially from the public treasury. It was stated that their equality with others is not right and one cannot consider them equal with others! This was the first step. The movements that lead to deviation start thus from an insignificant point and then every step accelerates the next step. These deviations started from this same point until the middle of Uthmān’s reign. During the reign of the third Caliph, the state of affairs became such that the prominent companions of the Prophet (P.B.U.H. & H.H.) were regarded as the greatest capitalists of their time! See what I mean! That is, these same high ranking companions whose names are famous–Ṭalḥa, Zubair, Sa‘d b. Abī Waqqāṣ and so on–these noble people, each of whom had a thick book of proud records in Badr and Ḥunayn, and Uḥud, were listed at the top of the capitalists of Islam. When one of them died and his gold was supposed to be divided among his inheritors; first, the gold was made into bars and then it was decided to break it into pieces with an axe, like fire wood that is chopped up with an axe! Gold is normally weighed with a mithqāl scale; you can imagine how much gold they had broken into pieces with an axe! These have been recorded in history and they are not issues that we can say the Shi‘ites have written in their books. These are facts that everyone has attempted to record and preserve. The amount of dinars and dirhams that they left behind was legendary.
1996/09/06
When we say, “The corruption of a system from within” it means just this. That is, some individuals appear in a society who try to gradually spread and transmit their infectious moral disease–i.e., world-intoxication and lustfulness–which, unfortunately, is indeed fatal. In such a condition would someone be bold enough or have enough patience to oppose the Yazīd b. Mu‘āwīya’s system? Would such a thing happen? Who thought of fighting against this tyrannical and corrupt system in Yazīd’s days? Within this context, Imam Ḥusayn’s (P.B.U.H.) great uprising was took place, in which he fought against the enemy as well as the comfort-seeking, corruptible, and deteriorating spirit of the ordinary Muslims. This is important.
1993/26/01
