In the Name of God, The Beneficent, the merciful, in our previous discussion on prophethood, we summed up the question and opined that the prophet, after his inner, spiritual revolution, causes a universal revolution in the societies he lives in. Today we try to find out what the purpose is in these radical transformations. This is not only a useful, but a necessary, recognition. What does the prophet follow and what is his ideal destination?
We may cite a variety of goals for prophethood but the main and fundamental goal of all divine prophets could be summarized in a few words: the prophets do their best to help humanity reach its destined goal of spiritual elevation and perfection. Man, as an animate creature, possessing all sorts of intrinsic talents, powers and energies has the potential to become a higher, superior and nobler being during his life-time.
In fact humans from the moment of their birth, are in the constant process of evolving into stronger and more intelligent beings. As far as the human body is concerned, its growth and gradual development could easily be observed. A new-born baby lacks many features you find in the grown-ups: he has no teeth, his hands are weak, his jaws are feeble, he cannot run on his feet, his stomach could not digest anything but mother’s milk and his brain and nervous system may not administer his own life.
Now, after a while, this weakling of a baby turns into a stronger creature: his hands become firmer, the feeble jaw-bones become hard, the tiny legs become strong and let him take big strides, the nervous system grows into a perfect system and that smallish brain will later be the source of solving some of the most complicated problems and of achieving many a great, scientific break-through. All these talents and gifts are not given him by any external factor; they were all deposited in his body and soul which under certain conditions developed and emerged. The baby possessed the faculty of speech already which later enabled him to speak and to communicate with others; in the same manner, he did possess the gifts of thinking, understanding and becoming a scholar or scientist. Thus we notice that humans are always growing and developing towards perfection. All he lacked are now available to him: he could not think wisely but later he employs his wisdom for various purposes and he did not have any experience but later he gained a lot of experience.
As I said it is obvious to see the corporal changes in a child and in a grown-up man; everyone could confirm these changes. The same sort of change is true in the case of human virtues, human spiritual gains and intellectual progress. A great mine of talents and spiritual powers are deposited in a human-being but if this mine is not dug out, those talents do not come to the surface. A good example in this respect is the process of producing mosaics of which the original stuff looks like an ugly, dark brick but after the long process of rubbing and polishing, it will turn into a real, decorative picture of small, beautiful pieces of stone, glass artistically put-together. The same process is true and valid in the case of man, that is, we could compare the intrinsic talents of man to those beautiful, shining pieces of mosaic that would emerge after a long period of polishing them. Man has the potential and capacity to reach incredible, spiritual heights if he does not indulge in sinful behavior and carnal desires; as Sa’di says:
You see the lofty flight of birds
Up in the sky,
You’ll witness flight of man
To heavens high,
If to your carnal whims you could
Only say: Fie!
This is exactly what many mystics have expressed, in prose or poetry, that a spiritually refined person could even reach a status far above God’s angels. The real purpose of the prophets is to help humanity to journey towards such lofty goals and save them from the evils of arrogance, violence, oppression, injustice and the pursuit of carnal desires.
Those people, whose deeds are worse than those of wolves, rabid dogs and other wild animals, cannot claim to be humans. The person who enjoys blood shedding and to whom the taking of other people’s lives is an entertaining game and the person, who never cares about the troubles, pains and hardships of others, are not humans, no matter how they look, how they dress and how they pretend or how much wealth, power and knowledge they have; all such people may not be called humans.
As I said before, the prophets come to purify man’s soul; you do not witness any sign of evil and wild behaviour in a prophetic environment. Around prophets of God you only find purity, humane behaviour and illumination. Of course some miracles have also been witnessed in the work of God’s prophets, but their most important mission was to purify humans and produce most elevated virtues and values in their souls. This is indeed the greatest miracle by them.
When we take a glimpse at some of the later companions of the holy Prophet, we see that those people, before meeting with the Prophet and receiving his illuminating, revolutionary teachings, were people with the potentials of committing crime or embracing vice, but these same people later turn into the greatest and most virtuous creatures.
Well, who was Abu-Dhar? He was a rough nomad who knew nothing about human or spiritual values; there are many thousands of such ignorant people in the world whom nobody cares about. There have been many well-intentioned reformers in history who did not begin their activities together with such people; they often worked with intellectuals and educated groups of their own ranks.
Yet, the holy Prophet turned people like Abu-Dhar and dozens like him into men who did not lack any human, spiritual virtues through his divine mission and the power of God’s Revelations. This is our Prophet’s real miracle; he changes Abu-Dhar into a personality who gives up his own egoism and self-love on the path of Islam and finally becomes a victim of his firm belief in Islam but never abandons his devotion to Islam and to the Prophet’s teachings.
This point about self-love is most important because we, ordinary people, want everything for ourselves or what belongs to us: our children, our shops, our business, etc. all of which return to love of one’s self. But Abu-Dhar sacrifices all that belongs to him in the path of God, and for the goal and purpose taught him by the Prophet; this is the true goal of prophethood: breeding new, virtuous people.
Next we shall discuss the subject of establishing a proper social system. But before this, I must draw your attention to a significant question. Let’s say that we have achieved the goal of setting up a comfortable, free system or social order including justice, equality and without class divisions, well what next? What are the people supposed to do in such a society? Should they only be eating, drinking, satisfying their sexual desires and living in ease and comfort? What is the ultimate goal of humanity? The people in the world should struggle, make sacrifices and even give up their lives to make the world a nicer place to live in; we could again ask the question ‘what next’?
To illustrate the matter more clearly, let me cite a simple example: we try to build a mosque in this part of our town and we spend the needed capital and labour for its completion and provide all necessary items together with a lot of publicity about this big project. What is the purpose of finishing this project? Well, it is for people to gather there to pray, to listen to spiritual lectures and carry out some other social functions. Now if there is no basic concept beforehand- as people gathering and doing prayers- what did we set up this mosque for? The same is true about creating a world of justice, comfort and progress; we may ask the question again: what should come next after this achievement? The materialist schools of thought and their theoreticians have no answer to such a question; they are absolutely empty-handed in this respect.
The materialist schools claim: we should do away with poverty in the world; we should create a prosperous world, put a stop to ignorance, and bring about that ideal, human society, where there is no oppression, no class divisions, no exploitation and no discrimination. Okay, imagine that you did create such a society – of course it has never witnessed anywhere- now what should humanity do afterwards? Eating, drinking, comfortable living and sleeping, is that all? The purpose of humanity’s struggles should be limited to such cheap goals? This is where the materialist schools of thought have to fall on their knees!
The materialist schools opine: the world should be developed, cultured and modernized, poverty must be eradicated, nobody should remain illiterate or ignorant, a highly advanced, human society must be established in which there is no injustice, no oppression, no class distinction, no discrimination and no exploitation of man by man. Of course no such society has been established up to now. But, let us imagine that such a society envisaged by these materialist thinkers is established, what would be their answer to the question: Now what are humans to do in this great society? They have no answer to this question. What is the goal of humanity in such a society? Again there is no answer. Humans in this ideal society do eat, drink, sleep, intercourse and spend a life of ease and comfort. Is this the goal that materialists believe humanity should struggle and fight for? All materialist schools of thought stop here; there is an absolute silence!
Well, now the divine schools of thought say: the goal goes farther than this; the sublime purpose is the purification of sons of Adam to become worthy of being a proper creature of God. The divine schools say that the spiritual advance of humans is boundless and that it is infinite as the power of God. When a man is truly on the path of spiritual progress, there is no imaginable end to it. This is the idea, the ideology and the ideal of divine religions and that of all monotheists throughout the world; there is always progress, there is always elevation, there is no end to it “we are of God and to Him we return” and the prophets of God come to fulfill this holy duty.
So you see what the mission of the prophets is. They come to save humanity from evil, from degradation and humiliation, from ignorant practices, from absence of morality and to flourish their hidden, God-given gifts and talents and to create spiritually perfect humans.
In this respect there are certain verses in the Quran which are most noticeable: “God has certainly blessed the believers by raising an Apostle from their midst to read His revelations to them, to purify them and teach them the Scriptures and the Wisdom…”. This is what prophets are sent for to purify humans, to help them be pious, virtuous and true moralists. That’s why our holy Prophet says: ‘I have come to perfect moral virtues.’
Well, this was the first purpose, but there is a second, more important objective. Why do we say more important? Because if the first purpose is looked at narrow-mindedly, some people may say: if it is the question of purification and moral self-elevation, we know what to do: we abandon the society, go to a secluded, safe place, to a monastery or to a mosque, forget about everything going on in the community and try to elevate our souls by prayers and remembering God and this way we shall salvage our souls, and if somebody comes to us, well, we’ll whisper some good words to him and try to save him too!
This kind of approach to the question of human, spiritual elevation could in fact become an excuse for laziness, inaction, neglecting other moral obligations, self-worship and the like. If religion is so reduced, many people and many leaders would welcome it! It doesn’t take much to behave like this, to gather some followers to read love- songs for them, to drug them into oblivion and to purify them!
A question arises here: Did the prophets of God behave like this? Did they approach some individuals, took them to some cozy place and tried to teach them something? Did the prophets of God just sat down in a house of dervishes, like some hermits or mystics, and waited for people to come to them and learn something from them and to turn them into some spiritual followers? Did the prophets of God, like some philosophers of the past, open a school, put up a sign-board at its entrance, and then invited people to go there and learn something from them? No, divine prophets do not act or behave like that; they do not go about converting single individuals to their creed. We should not suppose that God’s prophets such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus and our holy Prophet would, like Socrates and Plato, sit down somewhere, say, in a school, for people to go to them to benefit from their knowledge. No, they act differently. Nor was it so with our Imams. It is said that Imam Ja’far-al-Saadeg had thousands of students and many people think this was all that the Imam did. No, it wasn’t so, and I will later, when talking about the subject of ‘imamat’ try to explain what they did indeed.
The divine prophets struggle to turn people into proper human-beings according to correct, divine patterns; how could they achieve this? God’s prophets have a perfect answer to this question: by creating the proper environment and the social order for this grand purpose and this could only achieved in the context of a divine system; if you were to do this by going to individual people and changing them one by one, you would surely fail to change whole communities.
Let me cite you an example. You know about date-palms that are best grown in southern Iran and some Arab countries neighbouring us; people in these parts grow and cultivate the most excellent, tasty dates. Why is this? Because in those areas proper conditions exist for date-palms growth: certain degree of atmosphere, certain degree of moisture in the air, certain kind of soil and many other necessary conditions. But you cannot grow such date-palms in our Mash-had. Of course you may plant one in your garden, do your best to care for it: get proper fertilizers, watering it properly and provide other necessary conditions and when, after a while, you see a few dates up on your tree, could you boast and say: we in Mash-had also have date-palms too! No, you need the environment and prevailing conditions in the areas I mentioned to grow date-palms in abundance.
To use a modern expression, the principal mission of prophets is ‘mass production’. They try to change a whole society, to create a new community or system in which suitable conditions and the environment are prepared to create new faithful men in very large groups. Certainly this duty is far more difficult than converting a few individuals to follow you; the mission of the prophets was aimed at millions of people throughout the world. I insist on this fundamental dimension of prophets’ duties and I believe that the followers of prophethood should not pass over it inattentively. I want you to contemplate over this issue, to study the history of God’s prophets and refer to authentic narrations in this respect. Some people do not want to comprehend this basic point that God’s prophets did their best to create the necessary, suitable environment, not to go after a few individuals to convert them to their religion. This question of ‘mass production’ of new believers in monotheism is also stressed upon in many verses of the Quran as in Sura Al-Nasr: “When victory is come with God’s Help and Sanction, and you see men embracing God’s religion in many a legion, then praise your Lord, and seek His pardon, since He is certainly Most prone unto Remission.”
I should also tell you that our holy Prophet, at the inception of his mission among the mostly ignorant, backward people in Mecca, certainly had to convert a few influential people to form a firm foundation for his general, fundamental mission of converting the bigger community to God’s religion; he needed to first attract some individuals as Abu-Dhar, Abdullah Mas’oud and others and he did prepare dozens of such people for the later execution of his vast, divine mission of creating a civil, Islamic and monotheistic society; this is not in contradiction with the general fundamental scheme. And in this process he did encounter intolerable hardships, enmities and adverse plots; and those, young or old, who joined the Prophet, had to face all sorts of pains, tortures and boycotts.
After all these initial preparation, the principal part of the Prophet’s mission begins in Medina: the establishment of a divine, Islamic community with the holy Prophet at the helm to carry out God-given laws of Islam, and it is at this juncture that, as we just read in Sura Al-Nasr, ‘people in large groups and legions embraced the religion of God’, and this is the very core of our discussion on prophethood. So now I sum up the whole discussion in a few sentences. God’s prophets follow two objectives: firstly to purify humanity, to remove evils from their communities and to adorn them virtues and divine values; the second objective is the establishment of a monotheistic society governed by divine laws and injunctions. This has been the ultimate goal of all prophets, and if some people think that this was not their ideal, they should study history, read the Quran and refer to authentic narrations.
What I wrote down in the notes given to you, are only two verses from the Sura Al-Hadeed and there are many more verses in this respect in the great Book of God. Let’s now read these verses together, and I try to give you some brief explanations about them. “We have already sent Our messengers with clearest signs…”. This means that Our prophets come to you with absolutely clear reasons and arguments, and that the reasoning and logic of God’s prophets are quite transparent and easy to understand; there is nothing there that ordinary wise men will not comprehend. Then we read “… and we sent the Book (the Scriptures)…”. What does ‘the Book’ mean here? It stands for all the injunctions, instructions, knowledge and truth that form the main principles of religion and it may be translated into ‘a comprehensive ideology’ in contemporary usage. The Quran then adds: “…and the Balance…”. This does not mean that each prophet had ‘a pair of scales’, big or small! No, the Balance is what makes it possible for the prophet to establish social balance in the society. If the Prophet was supposed to be at the head of the Islamic community as its principal administrator, then he would be in need of this power of maintaining social balance. This also shows that the Prophet was there to form and administer a new society; otherwise he would not need this Balance. What does this Balance include? It includes the divine, judicial organs, the executive bodies or what we call the judicial and executive branches today.
In this respect I came across some Narrations by famed commentators; one of them has opined that the Balance also included the Imams. This is a good interpretation of the term Balance, because it is the Imam who could tell right from wrong and establish social balance in the society as the just ruler of the community. He supervises all affairs and protects the people from all sorts of imbalance. This Balance, says God, we also sent with Our Prophet.
Now we come to the reason of sending the Prophet and the Balance? Why did God do this? The same verse of Sura Al-Hadeed answers this question: “…that mankind may observe justice…”. This demonstrates the final purpose of sending the Prophet to lead humanity to set up an environment of equality and justice in an Islamic society, for it is only in a just system that mankind could enjoy the opportunity to move towards spiritual elevation.
Now, following this important point, the verse goes on to say: “…and We have sent down iron, laden with warlike violence as well as benefits for men…”. What does the mentioning of iron represent? As Quranic commentators and some narrations inform us, iron is a comprehensive word for all tools and weapons made of iron such as swords, daggers, spears, axes and like. Now, why does the Prophet need this? Well, just before this phrase, the Quran talks about setting up a just community of equal members. Is the establishment of this society of justice like drinking a glass of water? No, surely the oppressors, the despots, the wolves, the demons, the plunderers and the devils ruling the previous, inhuman system would fight you. The Prophet, his companions and followers would certainly face such evil adversaries. What should they do? Be submissive and surrender? No, the iron is also necessary. The verse contains: “…so that God sees who gives assistance to Him and His messengers…”. Certainly God already knows but it should be proven in practice for men themselves whether they helped the holy Prophet or they fought him. The next word in the verse is ‘belghaib’ which is usually translated as ‘Unseen’; this means that the faithful do believe in God and His messenger, although they have not seen God by their own eyes. This verse 25 of Sura Al-Hadeed ends with: “…and God is certainly the Powerful Almighty.” These sentences at the end of many Quranic verses are most meaningful; they are not inserted just for the sake of rhyme and rhythm! The final sentence in this verse saying that God is the Most Exalted in Might tells us that prophets of God have no fear struggling in the path of God because they have absolute faith in the Almighty.
Now let us read the two verses 156 and 157 of Sura Al-A’raaf noted down in the papers I gave you; they are about the faithful talking to their God; let’s see what they say: “And do for us ordain what is good in this world and in the coming world, indeed we turn to You alone…”. The faithful say ‘now that we have been guided to You and Your divine cause, we are asking for Your blessings and bounties in both worlds’, and God answers their supplication and says: “…My retribution shall fall upon the ones I will, but My mercy encompasses all, I will specially ordain it for those who refrain from sins, who give in charity and alms and are believers in Our Revelations.” Of course, God’s will is not like human will; the will of God is based on certain criteria that He has already ordained ; and according to these divine criteria, He does inflict some degree of retribution on evil-doers.
The Quran further describes these believers: “The followers of Apostle, the ummi Prophet, who is mentioned in their own Torah and the Evangel, he who enjoins on them what’s just and does forbid them to do evil, who makes lawful all wholesome things, and does prohibit all that’s foul…”. In the notes I gave you, I have not translated the word ummi because there are differences of opinion as to the meaning of this term: unlettered, resident of Mecca, etc. Well, apart from this etymological differences, God says that he is a prophet who ‘ enjoins on them what is right, and does forbid them to do evil, who makes all wholesome things lawful and does prohibit all that’s foul’.
In fact in a true Islamic society all things that are good, useful and pleasant for humanity and for human body, soul, heart and intellect are available including sciences, literacy, virtues and material needs; people do benefit from all fruitful bounties of God. On the contrary, all bad, evil and harmful things will not be available or shall be declared unlawful. The Quranic verse goes on to say: “…he released them from their burdens and things imposed on them like shackles; and those who have believed in him, and honoured him and gave him aid, and followed the Light send with him, these people shall certainly succeed (attain solvation).” So one of the characteristics of the Prophet, while executing his divine mission, is that he removes burdens: the burden of ignorance, the burden of wrong and evil traditions and customs, the burden of evil, inhuman orders, as dictatorship, despotism, oppression and exploitation; yes, he takes all these chains and shackles off the shoulders of humanity. The people in Mecca were also suffering under such physical and spiritual burdens as I mentioned. The Prophet releases them from these burdens by setting up a new human, monotheistic system. And finally the verse tells us that those who helped the Prophet, honoured him and followed the Light of the Quran will be the most successful in the Sight of God.
