Imam Ruhullah al Musawi al Khumayni - qudisa sirruh Translated from the Persian by Dr. Muhammad Legenhausen & 'Azim Sarvdalir In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Yet another year of our lives has passed. You young people are advancing toward old age, and we old people toward death. During this academic year you have become aware of the extent of your learning and study. You know how much you have acquired and how high the edifice of your education has been raised. However, with respect to moral refinement, the acquisition of religious manners, divine teachings and purification of the soul, what have you done? What positive steps have you taken? Have you had any thought of refinement or self- reformation? Have you had any programme in this field?
Unfortunately, I must submit that you have not done anything striking, and have not taken any great steps with regard to the reformation and refinement of the self.
Simultaneous with the study of scholarly matters, the centres of religious learning are in need of teaching and learning in morals and spirituality. It is necessary to have moral guides, trainers for the spiritual faculties, and sessions for advice and counseling. Programmes in ethics and moral reform classes in manners and refinement, instruction in divine teaching, which is the principle aim of the mission of the prophets, Peace be upon them, must be officially instituted in the seminaries.
Unfortunately, scant attention is paid in the centres of learning to these essential issues. Spiritual studies are declining, so that in the future, it is feared, the seminaries might not be able to train scholars of ethics, refined and polished counselors, or godly men. Occupation with discussion and inquiry into elementary problems does not allow the opportunity for the basic and fundamental topics attended to by the Noble Quran and of the great Prophet ('s) and the other prophets and saints (awliya'), Peace be with them. The eminent jurisconsults and high-ranking professors, who are noteworthy in the scholarly community, had better try, in the course of their lessons and discussions, to train and refine people and to be more concerned with spiritual and ethical topics. For the seminary students it is also necessary that in their efforts to acquire higher virtues and refinement of the soul that they give sufficient weight to their important duties and momentous responsibilities.
You who today are studying in these seminaries, and who shall tomorrow take charge of the leadership and guidance of society, do not imagine that your only duty is to learn a handful of terms, for you have other duties as well. In these seminaries you must build and train yourselves so that when you go to a city or village you will be able to guide the people there and show them refinement. It is expected that when you depart from the centre for the study of religious law, you yourselves will be refined and cultivated, so that you will be able to cultivate the people and train them according to Islamic ethical manners and precepts. If, God forbid, you were not to reform yourselves in the centre of learning, and you were not to realize spiritual ideals, then-may Allah protect us-everywhere you went, people would be perverted, and you would have given them a low opinion of Islam and of the clergy.
You have a heavy responsibility. If you do not fulfill your duty in the seminaries, if you do not plan your refinement, and if you merely pursue the learning of a few terms and issues of law and jurisprudence, then God protect us from the damage that you might cause in the future to Islam and Islamic society. It is possible-may Allah protect us-for you to pervert and mislead the people. If due to your actions, deeds and unfair behaviour, one person loses his way and leaves Islam, you would be guilty of the greatest of the major sins, and it would be difficult for your repentance to be accepted. Likewise, if one person finds guidance, then according to a narration "it is better than all that the sun doth shine upon." [1] Your responsibility is very heavy. You have duties other than those of the laity. How many things are permissible for the laity, which are not allowed for you, and may possibly be forbidden! People do not expect you to perform many permissible deeds, to say nothing of low unlawful deeds, which if you were to perform them, God forbid, people would form a bad opinion of Islam and of the clerical community.
The trouble is here: if the people witness your actions as contrary to what is expected, they become deviated from religion. They turn away from the clergy, not from an individual. If only they would turn away from one person and form a low opinion of just that person!
But if they see an unbecoming action contrary to decorum on the part of a single cleric, they do not examine it and analyze it, that at the same time that among businessmen there are unrighteous and perverted people, and among office workers corruption and ugly deeds may be seen, it is possible that among the clergy there is also one or a few impious or deviant persons. Hence, if a grocer does something wrong, it is said that such and such a grocer is a wrongdoer. If a druggist is guilty of an ugly deed, it is said that such and such a druggist is an evildoer. However, if a preacher performs an unbecoming act, it is not said that such and such a preacher is deviant, it is said that preachers are bad! The responsibilities of the learned are very heavy; the 'ulama have more duties than other people.
If you review the chapters related to the responsibilities of the 'ulama in Usul al-Kafi and Wasail[2] you will see how they describe the heavy responsibilities and serious obligations of the learned. It is narrated that when the soul reaches the throat, there is no longer any chance for repentance, and in that state one's repentance will not be accepted, although God accepts the repentance of the ignorant until the last minute of their lives. [3] In another narration it is reported that seventy sins will be forgiven of one who is ignorant before one sin is forgiven of an 'alim. [4] This is because the sin of an 'alim is very harmful to Islam and to Islamic society. If a lay and ignorant person commits a sin, he only wins misfortune for himself. However, if an 'alim becomes deviant, if he becomes involved in ugly deeds, he perverts an entire world ('alam). He has injured Islam and the 'ulama' of Islam. [5] There is also a narration according to which the people of hell suffer from the stench of an 'alim whose deeds to not accord with his knowledge. [6] For this very reason, in this world there is a great difference between an 'alim and an ignorant person with regard to benefit and injury to Islam and to the Islamic community. If an 'alim is deviant, it is possible that the community will become infected by deviation. And if an 'alim is refined, and he observes the morality and manners of Islam, he will refine and guide the community.
In some of the towns to which I went during the summer, I saw that the people of a town were well mannered with religious morals. The point is this, that they had an 'alim who was righteous and pious. If an 'alim who is pious and righteous lives in a community, town or state, his very existence will raise the refinement and guidance of the people of that realm, even if he does not verbally propagate and guide. [7] We have seen people whose existence causes lessons to be learned, merely seeing them and looking at them raises one's awareness.
At present in Tehran, about which I have some information, the neighbourhoods differ from one another. Neighbourhoods in which a pure and refined 'alim lives have righteous people with strong faith. In another neighbourhood where a corrupt deviant person wears the turban, and has become the prayer leader, and set up shop, you will see that the people there have been misled, and have been polluted and perverted. This is the same pollution from the stench of which the people of hell suffer. This is the same stench which the evil 'alim, the 'alim without action, the perverted 'alim has brought in this world, and the smell of it causes the people of hell to suffer. It is not because something is added to him there; that which occurs to this 'alim in the next world is something which has been prepared in this world. Nothing is given to us except that which we have done. If an 'alim is corrupt and evil, he corrupts the society, although in this world we are not able to smell the stench of it. However, in the next world the stench of it will be perceived. But a lay person is not able to bring such corruption and pollution into the Islamic society. A lay person would never allow himself to proclaim that he was an Imam or the Mahdi, to proclaim himself a prophet, or to have received revelation. It is a corrupt 'alim who corrupts the world: "If an 'alim is corrupt, a world ('alam) is corrupted." [8]
Those who have constructed (their own) religions, causing the straying and deviation of masses of peoples, have for the most part been scholars. Some of them even studied and disciplined themselves in the centres of learning. [9] The head of one of the heretical sects studied in these very seminaries of ours. However, since his learning was not accompanied by refinement and purification, since he did not advance on the path toward God, and since he did not remove the pollution from himself, he bore the fruit of ignominy. If man does not cast pollution from the core of his soul, not only will whatever studying and learning he does be of no benefit by itself, rather it will actually be harmful. When knowledge enters in this evil centre, the product will be evil, root and branch, an evil tree. However much these concepts are accumulated in a black impure heart, there will be greater obscurity. In a soul which is unrefined, knowledge is a dark cover: Al-'ilm huwa al-hijab al- akbar (Knowledge is the greatest veil). Therefore, the vice of a corrupt 'alim is greater and more dangerous for Islam than all vices. Knowledge is light, but in a black, corrupt heart it spreads wide the skirts of darkness and blackness. A knowledge which would draw a man closer to God, in a worldly soul takes him far distant from the sanctum of the Almighty.
Even the science of tawhid (i.e. the higher gnostic teaching), if it is for anything other than God, becomes a veil of darkness, for it is a preoccupation with that which is other than God. If one memorizes and recites the Noble Quran with all the fourteen different readings, if it is for anything other than God, it will not bring him anything but obscurity and distance from Haqq ta'ala (God). If you study and work hard, you may become an 'alim, but you had better know that there is a big difference between being an 'alim and being refined. The late Shaykh, our teacher, [10] may Allah be pleased with him, said, "That which is said, 'How easy it is to become a mullah; how difficult it is to become a man,' is not correct. It should be said, 'How difficult it is to become a mullah, and it is impossible to become a man!' " The acquisition of the virtues and human nobilities and standards is a difficult and great duty which rests upon your shoulders. Do not suppose now that you are engaged in studying the religious sciences, and learning fiqh (the study of Islamic law), which is the most honourable of these sciences, that you can take it easy otherwise, and that you have carried out your responsibilities and duties. If you do not have a pure intention of approaching God, these sciences will be of no benefit at all. If your studies-may Allah protect us-are not for the sake of God, and are for the sake of personal desires-the acquisition of position and the seats of authority, titles and prestige-then you will accumulate nothing for yourself but harm and disaster. This terminology you are learning, if it is for anything but God, it is harm and disaster. This terminology, as much as it increases, if it is not accompanied by refinement and fear of God (taqwa), then it will end in harm in this world and the next for the Muslim community. Merely knowing terminology is not effective. Even the science of tawhid, if it is not accompanied with purity of the soul, will bring disaster.
How many individuals have been learned in the science of tawhid, and have perverted entire groups of people! How many individuals have had the very same knowledge that you have, or even more knowledge, but were deviant and did not reform themselves, so that when they entered the community, they perverted many and led them astray!
This dry terminology, if it is not accompanied by piety (taqwa) and refinement of the soul, as much as it accumulates in one's mind it will only lead to the expansion of pride and conceit in the realm of the soul. The unfortunate 'alim who is defeated by his own conceit cannot reform himself or his community, and it will result in nothing but harm to Islam and the Muslims. And after years of studying and wasting religious funding, enjoying his Islamic salary and fringe benefits, he will become an obstacle in the way of Islam and the Muslims. Nations will be perverted by him. The result of these lessons and discussions and the time spent in the seminary will be the prevention of the introduction to the world of Islam and the truths of the Quran; rather, it is possible that his existence will be a barrier preventing the society from coming to know Islam and spirituality.
I am not saying that you should not study, that you should not acquire knowledge. But you have to pay attention that if you want to be a useful and effective member of society and Islam and lead a nation to awareness of Islam and to defend the fundamentals of Islam, it is necessary that the basis of jurisprudence be strengthened and that you gain mastery of the subject. If, God forbid, you fail to study, then it is forbidden for you to remain in the seminary. You may not use the religious salary of the students of the religious sciences. Of course, the acquisition of knowledge is necessary, although in the same way that you take pains with the problems of fiqh and usul (law and jurisprudence), you must make efforts in the path of self- reformation. Every step forward which you take in the acquisition of knowledge, should be matched by a step taken to beat down the desires of the soul, to strengthen one's spiritual powers, to acquire nobility of character, and to gain spirituality and piety.
The learning of these sciences in reality is an introduction to the refinement of the soul and the acquisition of virtue, manners and divine knowledge. Do not spend your entire life with the introduction, so that you leave aside the conclusion. You are acquiring these sciences for the sake of a high and holy aim: knowing God and refining the self. You should make plans to realize the results and effects of your work, and you should be serious about reaching your fundamental and basic goal.
When you enter the seminary, before anything else, you should plan to reform yourselves. While you are in the seminary, along with your studies, you should refine yourselves, so that when you leave the seminary and become the leader of a people in a city or district, they may profit from you, take advice from you, and reform themselves by means of your deeds and manners and your ethical virtues. Try to reform and refine yourselves before you enter among the people. If now, while you are unencumbered, you do not reform yourselves, on the day when people come before you, you will not be able to reform yourselves.
Many things ruin people and keep them from studying and purifying themselves, and one of them, for some, is this very beard and turban! When the turban becomes a bit large, and the beard gets long, if one has not refined oneself, this can hinder one's studies, and restrict one. It is difficult to trample the carnal self under one's feet, and to sit at the feet of another for lessons. Shaykh Tusi, [11] may Allah have mercy on him, at the age of fifty-two would go to classes, while between the ages of twenty and thirty, he wrote some of his books! His Tahdhib was possibly written during this period. [12] Yet at the age of fifty-two he attended the classes of the late Sayyid Murtada [13] and thereby achieved such station as he did.
God forbid that prior to acquiring good habits and strengthening one's spiritual powers that one's beard should turn a bit white and that his turban should get big, so that he would lose the blessings of knowledge and spirituality. So work, before your beards become white; before you gain the attention of the people, think about your state! God forbid that before a person develops himself, that people should pay heed to him, that he should become a personality and have influence among the people, causing him to lose his soul. Before you lose hold of the reins of your self, develop and reform yourself! Adorn yourselves with good traits, and remove your vices! Become sincere in your lessons and discussions, so that you may approach God! If one does not have sincere intentions, one will be kept at a distance from the divine precincts. Beware that, after seventy years, when the book of your deeds is opened, Allah forbid, that you should have been far from God Almighty for seventy years.
Have you heard the story of the 'stone' which fell into hell? Only after seventy years was the sound of its hitting the bottom of hell heard. According to a narration, the Prophet, may the Peace and Blessings of Allah be with him and with his Progeny, said that it was an old man who died after seventy years, and during this seventy years he was falling into hell. [14]
Be careful that in the seminary that you do not reach hell by your own labour of fifty years, more or less, and the sweat of your brow! You had better think! Make plans in the field of refinement and purification of the soul, and reformation of character. Choose a teacher of morals for yourself; and arrange sessions for advice, counsel, and admonition. You cannot become refilled by yourself. If there is no place in the seminary for moral counselors and sessions of advice and exhortation, it will be
[1].
The Commander of the Faithful, Imam 'Ali, Peace be upon him, said: "When
the Messenger of Allah, may Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him and
his Household, sent me to Yemen, he said: 'O 'Ali! Do not war against anyone
until you invite him to Islam. I swear by Allah, if by your hand the Great
and Almighty Allah should guide a man, then it is better for you than all
that the sun rises upon or sets upon, and you are his wali (guardian).'
" Al-Kafi, vol. 5, p. 36, "kitab al-jihad," "bab al-du'a ila al-islam
qabl al-qital," hadith 2.
[2].
Usul al Kafi, kitab fadhl al-'ilm," Chapters: "bab sifat al-'ulama',"
"bab badhl al-'ilm," "bab al-nahy 'an al-qawl bi ghayr 'ilm," "bab isti'mal
al-'ilm," "bab al-musta'kil bi 'ilmihi wa al- mubahi bihi," "bab luzum
al-hujjah 'ala al-'alim," "bab al-nawadir," and Wasa'il al-Shi'ah,
vol. 18, pp 9-17, 98-129, "kitab al-qada'," "abwab sifat al-qadi," bab
4,11,12.
[3].
Jamil ibn Darraj says that he heard from Imam Sadiq, Peace be upon him,
that he said, "When the soul reaches here (and with his hand he pointed
to his neck) for the learned, there remains no further chance of repentance."
Then he recited this ayah "The repentance of Allah is only for those
who do evil in ignorance" (4:17). Usul al Kafi, vol. 1, p. 59,"kitab
faqi al-'ilm," "bab luzum al-hujjah tala al-'alim," hadith 3.
[4].
Hafs ibn Ghiyath said that Imam Sadiq, Peace be upon him, said: "O Hafs!
Seventy sins will be forgiven of an ignorant person before one sin is forgiven
of an 'alim." Usul al-Kafi, vol. 1, p. 59, "kitab fadl alu
ilm" bab luzum al-hujjah 'ala al-'alim."
[5].
The Prophet of Allah, may Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him and
with his Household, said, "There are two groups from my community such
that if they are righteous then the community will be righteous, and if
they are corrupt, then the community will become corrupt." It was asked,
"Who are they?" He replied, "The 'ulama' and the rulers." Al-Shaykh
al-Saduq, al-Khisal, Chapter 2, p. 37; al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'uqul,
p. 50.
[6].
Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali said that he heard from the Commander of the
Faithful, Peace be with him, that he reported from the Prophet, that he
said, "There are two kinds of 'ulama', one who acts in accordance
with his knowledge, so he has been saved, and the 'alim who does
not act in accordance with his knowledge, so he will perish. And truly
the people of hell will suffer from the stench of the 'alim who
does not act in accordance with his knowledge." Usul al Kafi, vol.
1, p. 55, "kitab fadl al-'ilm", "bab isti'mal al-'ilm," hadith 1.
[7].
Imam Sadiq, Peace be upon him, said, "Invite the people to excellence,
but not by your tongue, rather let people see in you right struggle (ijtihad),
truthfulness, and piety." Usul al-Kafi, vol. 2, p. 78.
[8].
None given.
[9].
This group includes Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (founder of the Wahhabi
sect), Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i and Sayyid Kazim Rashti (founders of the Shaykhi
sect), Ahmad Kasravi and Ghulam Ahmad (founder of the Qadiyani sect).
[10].
Grand Ayatullah Hajj Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim Ha'iri Yazdi (d. 1355/1937) was
one of the greatest of Islamic jurists and a juristic authority of the
Shi'ah in the fourteenth Islamic century. He attended the classes of such
masters as Mirza-ye Bozorg Shirazi, Mirza Muhammad Taqi Shirazi, Akhiund
Khorasani, Sayyid Kazim Yazdi, Sayyid Muhammad Isfahani Fesharaki, in Najaf
and Samarra'. In the year 1340/1921, at the insistence of the ulama
of Qum and after finding a good omen in a passage from the Quran he took
up residence in Qum and organized the centre of religious studies (hawzah
'ilmiyyah) at Qum. Among his works are: Durar al-Fawa'id in usul,
al-Salat, al-Nikah, al-Rida', al-Mawarith, all the four in the field
of Islamic law.
[11].
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi (100%-460/995-1067). He is known
as 'al- Shaykh al-Ta'ifah,' and he was one of the most distinguished
scholars of the Imami Shi'ah. He was the leading jurist and theologian
of his time, and was also strong in literature, rijal, exegesis,
and hadith. His teachers were al-Shaykh al-Mufid, al-Sayyid al-Murtada,
Ibn al-Ghadai'iri, and Ibn 'Abdun. The Shaykh is the author of two famous
books of Shi'ite hadith, Istibsar and Tahdhib, counted among
the four books" of the Imami Shi'i hadith corpus. Al-Shaykh al-Tusi established
Najaf as the centre of Shi'ite learning.
[12].
Al-Shaykh al-Tusi began to write the Tahdhib, which is a commentary
on the Muqni'ah of al-Shaykh al-Mufid, during the lifetime of his
teacher (d. 413/1022). Al-Shaykh al-Tusi was about twenty-six years old
at this time.,
[13].
'Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Musa, known as al-Sayyid al-Murtada, and
'Alam al-Huda, (355-436/965-1044), is one of the greatest scholars
of Islam and Shi'ism. Most of the great scholars of the Imami Shi'ah, including
al-Shaykh al-Tusi, have benefitted from his teaching. Among the works he
wrote are: al-Amali, al-Dhari'ah ila usul al-Shari'ah, al-Nasiriyyat,
al- Intisar, al-Shafi'i.
[14].
Fayd Kashani, al-Kalamat al-maknunah, p. 123.
Notes: