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for it, is now considered unfashionable in the seminaries for our clergy. No one
gives it the importance of which it is worthy. Due to the lack of spiritual and
gnostic works in the seminaries, material and worldly problems have come so far
as to penetrate the clergy (ruhaniyat), and has kept many of them away
from holiness and spirituality (ruhaniyat) so that they do not even know
what ruhaniyat means, nor what the responsibilities of a cleric are and
what kind of programs they should have. Some of them merely plan to learn a few
words, return to their own localities, or somewhere else, and to grab facilities
and position, and to wrestle with others (for them), like the one who said:
"Let me study Sharh e Lum'ah and then I will know what to do with
the village chief!" Do not be this way, that from the beginning you aim to
win someone's position by studying, and that you intend to be the chief of some
town or village. You may achieve your selfish desires and satanic expectations,
but for yourself and the Islamic community you will gain nothing except harm and
misfortune. Mu'awiyah was also a person in command for a long time, but for
himself he achieved no result or benefit except curses and loathing and the
chastisement of the afterlife.
It is necessary for you to
refine yourselves, so that when you become the chief of a community or a clan,
you will be able to refine them as well. In order to be able to take steps
toward the reform and development of a community, your aim should be service to
Islam and Muslims. If you take steps for the sake of God, God the Almighty is
the turner of the heart He will turn hearts in favor of you:
Surely for those who believe
and do good deeds, the Merciful (al-Rahman) will bring, about love. (19:96)
Take some trouble on the way to
God, devote yourselves; God will not leave you unpaid; He will reward you, if
not in this world, then in the next. If aside from Him, you have no reward in
this world, what could be better? This world is nothing. This pomp and these
personalities will come to an end after a few days, like a dream that passes
before the eyes of man, but the otherworldly reward is infinite and never
ending.
Warnings to the Seminaries
It is possible that by spreading
poison and evil propaganda impure hands have portrayed ethical and reformatory
programs as without importance and have presented going to the minbar
(pulpit, pronounced as 'mimbar') for giving advice and making sermons as
contrary to a scholarly station, and they inhibit the work of the great
scholarly personalities who have the station of reforming and refining the
seminaries by calling them 'mimbar' and (mere sermonizers). Today, in
some seminaries, going to the mimbar and giving sermons may even be
considered disgraceful! They forget that the Commander of the Faithful, Peace
be with him', was mimbari (a sermonizer) and from the minbar he
would admonish people, make them aware of things, raise their consciousnesses,
and guide them. Other Imams, Peace be with them', were also this way.
Perhaps secret agents have
injected this evil in order to exterminate spirituality and ethics from the
seminaries, so that as a result our seminaries should become corrupt and
dissolute; that, God forbid, forming gangs, selfishness, hypocrisy, and disputes
should penetrate the seminaries; that the members of the seminaries fight with
each other, close ranks against one another, and that they insult and belie one
another; that they become discredited in the Islamic community, so that the
foreigners and enemies of Islam are able to get hold of the seminaries and
destroy them. The ill intentioned know that the people support the seminaries,
and as long as the people support them it is not possible to crush them or tear
them apart. But on the day when the members of the seminaries and the students
of the seminaries come to lack ethical principles and Islamic manners, and fight
each other, and form rival gangs, and are not refined and purified, dirty their
hands with unsuitable deeds, then naturally the nation of Islam will get a bad
impression of the seminaries and the clergy, and support for them will be lost,
and consequently the way will be opened for the use of force and enemy's
influence. If you see that governments are afraid of a cleric and of a marja'
(authority in Shi'ite jurisprudence and source of emulation), and take account
of them, it is because of this, that-they benefit from the support of the
people; in truth, they are afraid of the people. They consider it probable that
the people will rebel and rise up against them if they show contempt and
audacity and violate a cleric. However, if the clerics oppose one another and
defame one another and do not behave with Islamic manners and morals, they will
fall from their position in the community, and the people will abandon them.
The people expect you to be ruhani
(spiritual, a cleric), well mannered with the manners of Islam, and to be of the
party of ALLAH (SWT). Restrain yourselves from the glamour and glitter of life
and artificiality, and do not refuse any kind of self-sacrifice in the way of
the advancement of Islamic ideals and service to the nation of Islam. Step
forward on the way of God the Almighty to please Him, and except for the unique
Creator pay attention to no one. However, if, contrary to what is expected, it
is seen that instead of paying attention to the transcendental, all you care
about is this world, and just like the others you try to gain worldly and
personal interests, and you fight with one another for the sake of the world and
its base pleasures, and you take Islam and the Qur'an, may ALLAH (SWT) forbid
it, as playthings, simply to reach sinister goals and your own dirty,
disgraceful and worldly intentions, and you turn your religion into a
marketplace, then the people will be turned away and become cynical. So, you
will be responsible. If some of those who wear the turban and burden the
seminaries fight and brawl with each other and malign and slander one another
because of personal grudges and the pursuit of worldly interests, and rivalry
over some positions, they commit treason against Islam and the Qur'an and
violate the divine trust. God the Almighty has placed the holy religion of Islam
in our hands as a trust. The Noble Qur'an is a great divine trust. The 'ulama
and ruhaniyun (clergy) the bearers of the divine trust, and they bear the
responsibility to protect that trust from betrayal. This stubbornness and
personal and worldly antagonism are treachery against Islam and the great
Prophet of Islam.
I do not know what purpose these
oppositions; formations of cliques, and rivalries serve. If it is for the sake
of the world, you do not have much of that! Supposing that you did benefit from
pleasures and worldly interests, there would be no place for disagreements,
unless you were not ruhani, and the only thing you inherited of ruhaniyat
(spirituality, being a cleric) was the robe and the turban. A ruhani
(cleric) who is occupied with metaphysics, a ruhani who benefits from
living teachings and formative Islamic attributes, a ruhani who considers
himself a follower of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be with him', is not
possibly tempted by the world, nor would he allow it to cause disagreements. You
who have declared yourselves to be followers of the Commander of the Faithful,
Peace be with him', you should at least make a bit of research into the
life of that great man, and see if you are really one of his followers! Do you
know and practice anything of his zuhd (asceticism), taqwa (piety,
God-wariness) and simple, unadorned life? Do you know anything of that great
man's combat against oppression and injustice, and class differences, and of his
unhesitating defense and support of the oppressed and persecuted, of how he lent
a hand to the dispossessed and suffering social classes? Have you put it into
practice? Is the meaning "Shi'ite" nothing more than the
ornamental appearances of Islam? Therefore, what is the difference between
you and other Muslims who are much ahead and more observant in these matters
than the Shi'ah? What distinguishes you over them?
Those who today have set a part
of the world on fire, who spill blood and who kill, do this because they are
competing with each other in looting the nations of the world and swallowing
their wealth and the products of their labor, and in bringing the weak and
under-developed countries under their domination and control. Thus, in the name
of freedom, development and prosperity, the defense of independence and
protection of borders, and under other deceptive slogans, every day the flames
of war are set in some corner of the world, and millions of tons of incendiary
bombs are dropped upon defenseless nations. This fighting seems correct and
accords with the logic of worldly people whose brains are polluted. However,
your conflicts, even according to their logic, are incorrect. If asked why they
are fighting, they will say that they want to take over such and such a country;
the wealth and income of such and such a country must be made ours. However, if
you are asked why you have conflicts and why you are fighting, what will you
answer? What benefit do you get from the world, for the sake of which you are
fighting? Your monthly income, which the maraji' taqlid (supreme
authorities of religious jurisprudence) give to you, called "shahriyah,"
is less than the money spent by others for cigarettes! I saw in a newspaper or
magazine - I don't recall exactly - that the amount the Vatican sends to a
single priest in Washington makes quite a large figure. I reckon it is more than
the entire budget of all the Shi'ite seminaries! Is it right for you, with your
lifestyle and conditions, to have conflicts and confrontations with one another?
The root of all these conflicts,
which have no specific sacred aim, is love of this world. If conflicts of this
sort exist among you, it is for the reason that you have not expelled the love
of this world from your hearts. Because worldly interests are limited, each one
rises up against his rival in order to obtain them. You desire a certain
position, which someone else also wants, and naturally this leads to jealousy
and strife. However, the people of God - who have expelled the love of the world
from their hearts and have no aim but God - never fight with one another and
never cause such calamities and corruption. If all of the divine prophets were
to gather in a city today, there would be no disagreement or conflict among
them, for their aims and goals are one. The hearts of all of them, attend to God
the Almighty, and they are clear of any love of the world.
If your deeds and actions, your
way of life and your wayfaring, are of the sort evident today, then you had
better fear-may God protect us from it, that you may leave this world without
being one of the Shi'ah of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be upon him'. You
should fear that your repentance might not be accepted, and that you might not
receive the intercession of Imam 'Ali (A.S.). Before losing the opportunity, you
should try to remedy this. Give up these banal and shameful conflicts. These
confrontations and conflicts are wrong. Do you compose two nations? Does your
religion constitute different sects? Why will you not beware? Why are you not
pure and honest and brotherly with one another? Why? Why?
These conflicts are dangerous,
for they lead to irreparable harms, the destruction of the seminaries, and they
will bring you discredit and dishonor in the community. This banding into gangs
is only to your loss. Not only does it bring you harm and. discredit, but it
brings dishonor and harm to the community and the nation, and leads to the harm
of Islam. If your confrontations lead to harm it will be an unforgivable
offence, and before God the Almighty it will be one of the greatest of all sins,
because it will corrupt the community and make it prone to the influence and
domination of the enemy.
Perhaps some hidden hands are at
work spreading enmity and discord in the seminaries, sowing by various means the
seeds of discord and strife, poisoning the thoughts and confusing the minds
under the guise of religious duties' by means of such religious
duties' corruption is established in the seminaries, so that those who are
useful for the future of Islam are destroyed and disabled from serving Islam and
the Islamic community in the future.
It is necessary to be conscious
and aware. Do not fool yourselves into thinking that your religious duties
require such things, and that your religious obligations are such and so.
Sometimes Satan determines responsibilities and duties for man. Sometimes
selfish wants and desires force a man to do things in the name of religious
duties. Offending a Muslim and saying something bad about a brother in faith are
not religious duties. This is love of the world and love of self. These are the
promptings of Satan, which bring such wretchedness for man. This enmity is the
enmity of the damned:
"That most surely is the
truth, the contending of one with another of the inmates of the fire"
(38:64).
Enmity and contention exist in
hell. The people of hell have conflicts, fighting and clawing at one another. If
you have quarrels for the sake of the world, beware that you are preparing hell
for yourself, and you are on the way there. There is no fighting for things of
the other world. The people of the other world are pure and at Peace with one
another. Their hearts are overflowing with the love of God and servitude to Him.
The love of God requires the love of those who have faith in God. The love for
the servants of God is the shadow of that very love for God.
Do not set your own hands on
fire. Do not set ablaze the flames of hell. Hell is lit with the ugly works and
deeds of man. These are the deeds of refractory man, which set this fire. It is
narrated: "I passed hell when it was extinguished." If a man
does not light the fire by his works and deeds, hell will remain extinguished.
The interior of this nature is hell. To approach this nature is to approach
hell. When man passes away from this world and the; curtains are drawn aside, he
will realize.
"This is for what your
own hands have sent before," (3:182),
And
"and what they had
done they shall find present," (18:49).
All of the deeds, which are done
by man in this world, will be seen in the other world, and will be embodied for
him,
"So he who has done an
atom's weight of good shall see it and he who has done an atoms weight of evil
shall see it"(99:7-8).
All of the works and deeds and
words of man will be reflected in the other world. It is as if everything in our
lives were being filmed, and in that world the film will be shown, and one will
be able to deny none of it. All of our actions and movements will be shown to
us, in addition to the testimony given by our limbs and organs:
"They shall say: ALLAH,
Who makes everything speak, has made us speak" (41:21).
You will not be able to deny
your ugly deeds or hide them before God, Who Will make all things able to speak
and bear witness. Think a little, look ahead, and weigh the consequences of your
deeds. Keep in mind the perilous events, which take place after death, the
pressure of the grave, the world of barzakh (the period between death and
resurrection), and do not neglect the hardships, which will follow that. At
least believe in hell. If a man believes in the perilous events, which take
place after death, he will change his way of life. If you had faith and
certainty in these things, you would not live so freely and licentiously. You
will try to guard your pen, your steps, and your tongue, in order to reform and
purify yourselves.
Divine Blessings
Because He favors His servants,
God the Blessed and Supreme gave them Intellect. He gave them the power to
refine and purify themselves. He sent the prophets and awliya' to guide
people and to help them to reform themselves so that they do not fall into the
severe chastisement of hell. If these restraints do not bring about awareness
and refinement in man, God the Merciful, will make him aware through other
means: by various hardships, afflictions, poverty, illness. Like an expert
physician or a skilled and kind nurse He tries to cure sick men from dangerous
spiritual illnesses. If God blesses a servant, he will be faced with afflictions
until he turns his attention to God the Almighty, and is refined. This is the
way, and other than this there is no way. But man must tread this path with his
own feet in order to attain success. If he does not succeed in this way, and the
misled man is not cured, he does not deserve the blessings of heaven. There will
be much pressure on him when his soul is drawn from him, so perchance he will
return and be aware. Again, if he is not affected, then in the grave, in the
world of barzakh, and in the terrible perilous events which take place
after death he will suffer pressures and chastisement until he becomes purified
and refined, and he will not go to hell. All of these are blessings from
Almighty God to prevent man from going to hell. What then if with all these
blessings and favors from Almighty God he is still not cured? Then there is no
other alternative but the last cure, which is that he should be burned. How many
a man has not refined and reformed himself and was not affected by these cures,
so that he needed God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, to refine His servant by
fire, just as gold must be purified in fire.
Regarding the ayah:
"Living therein for ages,"
(78:23).
It has been reported that the
'ages' mentioned here are for those who have been guided and the basis of whose
faith has been intact. This is for you, and me if we are believers. Each
age lasts for thousands of years, how many only God knows. God forbid that we
reach such a state that these cures are not effective, so that this final cure
is required for deserving and meriting the everlasting blessings [of heaven] God
forbid that it should be necessary that a man should go to hell for a while and
burn there until he is purified from his vices, spiritual pollution, and filthy
Satanic attributes, so that he may become deserving and capable of benefiting
from:
"gardens beneath which
rivers flow." (58:22).
Beware that this is only for
those whose sins have not reached such an extent that they are entirely deprived
of the mercy and blessings of God the Almighty, those who yet have an essential
merit for going to heaven. God forbid that a man, due to the multitude of his
sins, should be expelled and blocked from the presence of God the Almighty, and
that he should be bereft of the divine mercy, so that there is no other way for
him but to remain forever in the fire of hell. God forbid that you should be
bereft of divine mercy and blessings, and that you should be subject to His
wrath, anger, and chastisements. May your deeds, behavior and speech not be the
means to the denial of grace, so that there is no way for you but eternal
damnation?
Now, while you cannot bear to
hold a hot stone in your hand for a minute, keep the fire of hell away! Keep
these fires away from the seminaries and from the clerical community. Keep
disputes and strife far from your hearts. Behave well with people, and in
company, and be compassionate and kind. Of course, you are not to be nice to
sinners with regard to their sins and rebelliousness. Tell him to his face of
his ugly deeds and wrongdoing, and prohibit him from it; and keep yourselves
from promoting anarchy and disturbance. Behave well with the servants of God and
the righteous. Show respect to the learned with regard to their knowledge, to
