In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, “O prophet, you’re asked about ‘anfaal”. whose are anfaals?
Well, let us first clear the meaning of ‘anfaal’. We may explain briefly that ‘anfaal’ are the properties which belong to all Muslims. One example of it is the spoils of battle which fall into the hands of Muslims; another example is underground wealth such as mines and the like and there are also arable fields and forests in lowlands and on the mountains. Therefore ‘anfaal’ are special kinds of property that do not belong to any individual or group and, in short, ‘anfaal’ belong to the whole people or nation. The very first time that a question raised about this was after the Battle of Badr. Presumably the Muslims talked among themselves about the ownership of the spoils and asking ‘whom did they belong to’? And they asked the Prophet about this. Then the verse was revealed: “The anfaal belong to God and His Messenger”. The Muslims thought ‘what does ‘belong to God’ mean’? Does it mean that the spoils were not put at the disposal of some of His servants? Of course God is needless and therefore ‘belong to God’ means that they should be spent in the path of God and for divine goals. And now what does ‘belong to His Messenger’ mean? It means that it is the Messenger who decides about the best ways of exploiting them. Otherwise everybody would claim that they were servants of God and so God’s belongings should be given to them to use them for their personal needs. What is God’s should be used for the good of the community but it cannot be given to individuals under chaotic, confused conditions. Who’s going to decide about this? His Messenger who is the guardian and the sponsor of all Muslims. Here the meaning of ‘Messenger’ is not in the context of Prophethood; the Messenger here is the ruler of a divine state. And after the Messenger passes away, then the Imams who have God’s approval for people’s guardianship, will have to fulfill this role.
Anyway, despite the fact that all mines, forests, the battle-spoils and other such properties and treasures belong to the umma as a whole, but they must be decided upon by an Islamic ruler.
Now after the question of ‘anfaal’ was made clear, the verse continues: “thus be god-fearing and set all relations aright among yourselves and do obey God and the Messenger, if you are true believers.” This means that you must be god-fearing in the first place and try to settle any differences or disputes you have with one another with truth and virtue in mind, do not quarrel with each other over trifles, silly excuses. So the advice of God and His Messenger is to set aside such petty issues, don’t fight each other, but if necessary, prepare yourselves to fight your enemies, you shouldn’t be fighting your own brethren-in-religion. The third advice is a more general one “Obey God and the Messenger if you are true believers”; this includes doing all sorts of good deeds and avoid all wrongs, vices and sins.
And about ‘real belief and faith’ we should say that faith is not only a heart-felt attitude or intellectual, psychological, ideological tendency or attraction towards a person, to a group or to some centres. Faith or belief is only true when one does act and practice according to it. Only when you do behave according to the commitments and necessities of faith, you may call yourself a believer or a faithful person. You may say you are a believer in God but your life style and your behaviour and action do differ from those who respect God and do not believe in the Creator. We may ask about the difference between a believer and a non-believer. What is the difference of many so-called believers and non-believers in our age? Both commit acts of injustice, both are deeply involved in the material world around them and both are ready to trample upon all merits and virtues for a few more years of living, for further eating and drinking and for some passing mundane joys. The only difference is that one party says ‘I don’t believe in God’ and the other claims ‘I do believe in God’! What sort of faith or belief is this?! Here the Quran is most precise; here it is not a question of some intellectual or rational suggestion which you may have doubts about. It says most clearly that if you are faithful, you ought to do such and such. One of these Quranic injunctions is “Obey God and the Messenger”; obey them and follow them without doubt and hesitation. What are God’s commands? We know that God Almighty has announced certain commands concerning men’s relation with God, with other humans, animals and even plants, and obliged men to certain duties and commitments about them. If you obey God in what He has ordained in these respects, you could rightly claim that you are a believer and faithful person. But the kind of faith only resides in your heart and mind and is never followed by actions, by what your hands and feet do, by what’s truly uttered by your tongue, will not suffice and will be of no use and you shall not be a believer in Islam. This is the obvious logic of the Quran: “Be god-fearing and virtuous and do away with petty quarrels among yourselves and obey God and the Messenger if you are true believers”.
And then because the word believer is mentioned, the verse goes on to describe who the believers are: “The true believers are indeed the people whose hearts are filled with awe and veneration when God the One is mentioned, whose faith is further strengthened when a verse of His revelation is unto them rehearsed, who only in their Lord put all their trust, who steadfastly keep up their prayers and spend of what We have for them provisioned, such are the truly faithful…”. As you see there are some 5 characteristics mentioned here as the description of the faithful. Of course people may not possess all these characteristics or qualities, yet if they try to acquire or strive to achieve them, and do something to strengthen their faith, they may also be worthy of the epithet of being a believer.
Let’s say a little more about believers. The verse says that the faithful or believers are those whose hearts are filled with awe and fear when God’s name is mentioned. What does fearing God mean? Is it like the fear in the heart of a criminal standing before a judge? Is fear of God a different and more delicate feeling? One may possibly claim ‘I haven’t committed a sin, so I don’t have a fear of God. Well, he may be right if he thinks that fearing God is the same as the fear of criminal before a judge or a prosecutor.
But there is another kind of awe based on knowledge, cognition and insight. Let me explain this in simple terms. Human beings, when facing great phenomena, astronomical wander or glorious infinite facts, do feel some sort of awe in their hearts. This is not because they fear that the sky will fall on their heads, no, it is caused by the greatness of what they observe and the feeling of how small they are in such comparisons. Well, this kind of venerable awe or fear of God Almighty is a proper, pleasant and useful feeling. The person who knows how little and infinitesimal he is vis-à-vis God Almighty and is certain that God encompasses all and everything, tries to tread along the path that the God of the Worlds has shown him; he tries not to go astray. Therefore the firmest guarantee for Muslims and for the Muslim community as a whole is their actual movement, action and practices on the true path of God.
Amir-al-Mo’meneen Imam Ali (AS) writhes, wails and sheds tears in the middle of nights and in the nights of Ramadan, Imam Zein-al-Abedeen, Ali-bin Husain (AS) prays and moans and weeps most intensely and the Messenger of God puts his bed aside on the last 10 days of the month of Ramadan (because he says these are special nights for beseeching God and worshipping Him more than other times, not a time for sleeping); these are not artificial performances as some people suggest; they say the Prophet and the Imam did so to educate the people. How unaware and uninformed is the person who thinks that the Imam, through Abu-Hamza Prayer, intended to educate others but he himself did not share it. No, they shed tears because their knowledge about God was far greater than we ordinary people feel.
Those who say that the Imam, in Abu-Hamza Prayer, is only teaching others how to pray, must be most ignorant about the spirit of such prayer and the sublime quality of these righteous servants of God. Those who think that the Imams’ weeping and their shedding tears were artificial acts for our education, are really mistaken; they wept and shed tears because their knowledge of God was much higher than ours. Imam Ali (AS) sees such greatness in the holy Creator that our short-sighted eyes fail to see. The small mirror of our spiritual entity cannot reflect the awe-inspiring greatness of God, but the Imam sees it clearly and thus weeps and wails so deeply.
When God is remembered, a true believer visualizes that immeasurable greatness and then considers his infinitesimal existence, and that is why this venerable awe dominates his soul. In other words, under such conditions, God is not just a name we habitually use. God for him then is not the Allah we habitually use in such phrases as Ya-Allah, Al-hamdu lillah and Insha-Allah! Such usages are a result of not paying due attention to the greatness of God or hopelessness and tiredness! That is why the Quran says: “The true believers are indeed the people whose hearts are filled with venerable awe when God is mentioned “. This feeling is due to the lofty holiness of God and the smallness of human beings.
The other sign of a true believer is: “…their faith is strengthened when a verse of His Revelation is unto them rehearsed…”. Whether you yourself are reading the Quran or somebody else reads it, which makes no difference, it should increase and strengthen your faith. This faith is like a seed in your soul, it grows and it enlarges as a plant, and its roots gradually become so firm that it cannot ever be uprooted. Those people who learned something about being a believer when they were children, if they have doubts about it as adults, then the seed in the soul becomes smaller and weaker as they age; maybe some half-truth remains in their souls but even that may become slenderer because of certain events in their lives. Such faiths may one day fade away completely. A believer’s faith should not be like that. A true believer strengthens one’s faith daily by deeply thinking and deliberating religious and divine truths; a true believer will never allow his faith to fade away.
According to this verse of the Quran, by reading the Quran a believer’s faith is strengthened. And on the authority of this Quranic verse we say we should counter those who keep saying: ‘Don’t translate the Quran, don’t explain its meaning and don’t interpret it because our human intellect cannot understand it’! Well, if we cannot understand the Quran, then how could our faith be strengthened by reading it? So, it is clear that the Quran is not a book of riddles, mysteries and codes; it is a Book that ought to be read for the purpose of understanding it so that we could increase and strengthen our faith; this is the second characteristic of a believer.
Then we have: “…who only in their Lord put their trust…” What does trust in their Lord mean? Does it mean that they should do not do anything, sit idly by and say that God Almighty will put everything right for them? No, this is not real trust in God. The person who does not do a thing and does not employ his gifts and powers to fulfill all his duties, obligations and commitments but waits for a miraculous act on the part of God, should know that the Quran rejects all such nations. The Quran addresses the sons of Israel who told Moses: “…thus go, you and you Lord, and fight them, we will be sitting down right here.” This means: you and your Lord go and fight them, we are sitting here comfortably in the shade and when you win, let us know and then we’ll join you! The Quran clearly rejects this. This was the attitude of those Israelites who were really ignorant of their religion and strangers to a real faith. The Muslims should never behave like that, for this attitude lacks any trust in God. And I should add here for all to hear and understand that true trust in God is not the sort of trust some people have and thus claim:
‘Well, God will put everything right Himself, poor human servants of God cannot do anything’. This is quite wrong because if people were not able to try and eradicate corruption and other vices, then God Almighty would not mobilize His prophets and would not ordain that people should follow those divine prophets who did their utmost in earthly battle-fields to fight vices, evil practices and all sorts of corruption.
Now you may have this question in mind: What does ‘trust in God’ mean then? Well, truly our hope and our trust should always be in God Almighty but this trust should not have the form and function of a pain-killer, a kind of narcotics which gives you an opiating effect. No, the way I see it, and have already explained, trust in God has a motivating, energy-giving and encouraging effect for striving further on the path of God.
What do people do when they face hardships, insurmountable obstacles or certain crises in their lives, and they cannot remove them? What do they do? Some three attitudes or approaches have often been observed. One is to give up, to submit to superior powers and say to oneself: what can I do but being submissive? They may kneel down at the foot of an enemy or a more powerful person; some others force themselves to be content with what’s going on. Another group tends to end their lives by suicide under such circumstances. In short, these are some of the so-called solutions chosen by those lacking any faith in God. When such people are in a cul-de-sac in their life, when they think there will be no doors opened to them, and when they believe there is no way out, no escape, no solution, as I said, they will submit to force or let themselves be playthings in the current of affairs or commit suicide. But for true believers in God who do have trust in Him, there are no cul-de-sacs; all dead-ends could be opened up by God for there are no dead-ends as far as the Almighty God is concerned.
Was there a dead- end in the battle of Uhud for the Muslim troops? No, but as they thought that they had defeated the enemy, they were covetous of the spoils of war, so they abandoned their tactical positions, specially those bowmen who were guarding a mountain pass which did not allow the enemy horsemen to enter the battle-field. So, when they were busy gathering spoils with their swords and horses away from them, the enemy assaulted them from left and right; as a result many of them were killed and many ran up to the mountain to take shelter. And some people, inspired by Satan, always most active at such times, cried out that the Prophet was also killed. Under such tough conditions, what are believers really to do? Horses and swords are away from them, there is no escape route and the armed enemy has dominated the battle-field and, worst of all, the false news that the Prophet was also killed.
Is this now the worst cul-de-sac for the believers? A true believer should think ‘even if the Prophet is killed, well, his God is alive’. What does a Muslim with trust in God do under such adverse circumstance? They should have acted just like Imam Ali (AS) who was shielding the Prophet from harms together with a few other brave trustful believers in God and, as you know, from various narrations, they did save the Prophet’s life. And what did those do who had no trust in God? They ran away like frightened dogs to reach the walls of the city of Medina!
Those who think that ‘trust in God’ means sitting and doing nothing, no effort, no movement, in the hope of some unknown future, with no faith in the powers and gifts God has bestowed upon them, such people neither know what Islam is, nor what ‘trust in God’ means. There are also some people who lack honour and dignity and interpret ‘trust in God’ in such ways as to lead other people astray.
Anyway, in my opinion, trust in God and patience as understood in Islam are two powerful wings for Muslims to fly for their earthly efforts. In fact any umma who employs these two wings could be immune from all shots fired at them by earthly enemies. Well, this was the third sign in a believing person. But about the quality of faith and its peculiarities, we must talk further in detail (and I shall have a full discussion about it tomorrow, if God will).
Now after the verse ‘and in their Lord they trust’, we have, as the fourth sign of a believer: “…who steadfastly keep up their prayers…”. Please pay attention to the two verbs Yusalloon and Yughimoon. Yusalloon means ‘doing the prayers’ and if it was only the question of a physical performance, that is standing, bowing and sitting, then it would not be necessary to use the verb Yughimoon. It is obvious that by stating “steadfastly keep up prayers”, something much higher is meant; there is a superior truth.
Thus you may ask: what is this higher truth? There are a few probable interpretations and all of them may be right. One is to say that because the root meaning of Yughimoon is iqaama in Arabic and it means ‘to do a thing in perfect manner’, then we must perform this precept or ordinance of God, in a perfect way as the Quran says: “Thus set your face upright towards the Faith…”. If one performs one’s prayer in the best possible way, with complete attention and in its most perfect form, he could certainly expect his soul’s salvation. (I have already talked about the topic of daily prayers and their importance for a few weeks in our other mosque and so I don’t repeat them here.
Let me add that for a person who performs good prayers, all problems become solvable. You must have heard that some Islamic dignitaries, when faced with hardships and disasters, performed two units of prayers. You must have heard also that the holy Prophet, during certain hardships and crises, would tell Balaal: ‘Please let us at ease, freshen up our heart’, meaning ‘go and say azaan’. Truly if a person performs his prayers as it should, with proper attention, humbly and consciously, he shall definitely attain what has been promised to the believers.
Well, that was one probability. The other probable interpretation is that by “those who steadfastly keep up prayers”, is meant that you should try to keep up prayers throughout the community. As we know there are people who do perform their prayers, all the 17 units and even more than that by also performing many recommended prayers. If they’re warned that the prevailing conditions are driving many people from religion, they don’t care at all because they’re only engaged in saving their own souls; they say that they’re hardly saving themselves, they don’t have time for others! This attitude is not a sign of faithfulness. If you only do your own prayers and are not concerned with others, your behavior is not properly Islamic, that is, your prayers are not perfect.
So again, what are the signs of faithfulness? This interpretation obliges you to keep up the performance of prayers throughout the society, and to encourage each and everyone to do prayers. This doesn’t mean that such and such a person does not perform prayers. I would like you to go above the meanings of ordinary words; we have to consider the more sublime meaning of the words. We must be thinking of a community that is remembering God all the time and striving in the path of God every moment. A community who says in unison: “Thee only do worship and unto Thee alone, do we appeal for help.” This means that a true believer never worships anybody or anything but God, he has no trust but in God and never asks for help and assistance but from God. A true prayerful community is one that constantly declares its immunity from the chiefs of corruption on earth, that is, the people who are the objects of ‘the wrath of God’ and their followers who ‘have gone astray’ from the path of God.
So Iqaamat-al-Salaat means that you try to urge others to perform their prayers; this would be a great effort on the path of absolute servitude to God Almighty, an attempt to eradicate corruption and removing the question of ‘I or we’, trying to establish human, social unity among all people as well as among the members of the Islamic umma. To urge others to do five times of daily prayers when they say repeatedly that “Thee only do we worship and from Thee only we seek help”, is a great act by the true servants of God. Therefore the Iqaamat-al-Salaat could also be interpreted in its social sense as I explained.
What is the next sign of a true believer? The Ayah continues: “…and those who spend of what We have for them provisioned…”. Yesterday I pointed out the meaning of infaagh and explained it on several occasions, and today I repeat that its real meaning is to fill up certain gaps and remove certain needs in other people’s lives. But there are actions which may not be considered as such. For example, the walls of this mosque we’re in are oil-painted and they look alright, now if you spend some money to paint it afresh, it is not infaagh. ‘Of what provisioned for them’, it is not a question of money. What We have granted them may include the life God has granted you, children He has granted you, everything else God has granted us: our reputation, our physical powers, our tongues, our brains and our intellect and all other potentials because the Quranic verse says ‘of what We have provisioned for you’; what should they do with all these powers and potentials? They ought to employ it in the right way of infaagh.
Yes, O faithful brother, apparently a believer, when someone calls you a believer, you enjoy it, but if you are rightly admonished for something, you hate it. You say you spend in the path of God; I know, in these evenings of the month of Ramadan, you prepare all sorts of delicious food and set up colorful food-tables and invite some people who do not really need them, you spend a lot but do you really perform an act of infaagh?!
There are preachers and lecturers who breathlessly talk about doing good, using their utmost powers of speech, exhausting their nerves and lungs, yet the question is: how much of these efforts are really in the way of infaagh. Talking too much is not an appreciable art. And there are people who, using their reputation and influence, try to find a good-salaried job for someone they like; and there are people who spend a lot of money in the name of religion, but are they all done as acts of infaagh. This is a bitter fact, and don’t be surprised by hearing this from me because such actions do not really fill up a gap or remove a real need, they don’t heal any social pains and do not really help the community. So true infaagh is another sign of a believer. From now on take care and think deeply whether what you’re spending is infaagh or expenditure for other purposes.
Finally we read in the same Ayah: “These are the rightful believers and the truly faithful; for them there shall be exalted ranks of dignity with their Lord and Pardon…”. I explained the word maghfirat (Pardon and Forgiveness) in full yesterday. When God grants Pardon to a person, He is healing an injury in his soul caused by committing some sins, and this Pardon in followed by ‘rizghun karim’ (noble provisions); God grants people such noble provisions without any adverse conditions attached to it.
There are some apparently faithful people who claim ‘thank God, we obtain our daily bread, without begging others and we are living comfortably’. But if you do some investigation about their deeds, you find out that they win their daily bread through most shameful ways and they are not aware of the shamefulness of their jobs, their behavior and their deeds. In a wider sense, a community will obtain its provisions properly only when it obtains them through honourable, pure and spotless means. If we are true believers and behave righteously, then all those slogans and ideals that today some false politicians promise about peace, freedom, welfare and brotherhood in a highly-educated, most progressive societies with a really high human culture, would be realized in practical terms. Yes, all such promises and prospects will be realized only in a faithful society.
Well now I call on our dear Quran reciter to come here and recite the verses we have already explained in order that you may, God willing, pay more attention to their real Quranic meanings.
I will, in our coming meeting, tell you more about true faith, conscious faith, faith not being based on prejudice, ignorance or blindly following others in order to make the question of faith most clear for you all.
