Ep 12 — Exclusive Worship and Obedience of God

Session 10: Exclusive Worship and Obedience of God. delivered Saturday, 6 Mehr 1353 / 11 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat Yunus (10:30-31). There every soul will be tried for what it sent ahead, and they will be returned to God, their true Master, and there will vanish from them all that they used to fabricate. Say: Who provides for you from the heaven and the earth? Or who possesses hearing and sight? And who brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living? And who governs the affair? They will say: 'God.' So say: Will you not then be wary of Him? As we have already said, the discussion of Tawhid in the Qur'an is very long and detailed. Indeed, the longest and most detailed discussion in the whole of the Qur'an is the discussion of Tawhid. Even the discussion of Prophethood — for all its length, for all the stories and accounts of the prophets recounted in certain places as object lessons — still rests upon Tawhid, upon the question of the existence of God, and above all upon negating shirk (associating partners with God), which the Qur'an carries out in various forms. In this the Qur'an is utterly without peer — both in the tenor of its language and in the number of its verses. As the discussion expands, the issues within the field of Tawhid grow more numerous and more varied. Here we can raise only a few of them, supporting them with verses — not every issue that could be raised concerning Tawhid or in its vicinity. If Tawhid is not merely a vision and a reading of reality but, beyond that, a knowledge that produces action and shapes life — formulations that were to some extent clarified and proven in the past days — and if Tawhid is a belief that entails a commitment and a responsibility, then we must search out that commitment, those responsibilities that lie folded and embedded within the heart of Tawhid. We must find them, and item by item, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, set each one down as a heading, then trace and pursue it through the Qur'an or through the totality of the Islamic sources — that is, the Qur'an and the Hadith. Attend closely to the words and formulations I use. I make them deliberate and considered, so fix them correctly in your minds, and let your reflection and pondering rest precisely upon what is intended. Here is the point. If Tawhid is a belief that brings a commitment and a responsibility for the one who holds it, then we must understand, after all, what that responsibility and that commitment are. Is it summed up merely in accepting this belief with our tongue, or in our heart and our thought? That is to say, is belief itself the responsibility? Or does its scope reach beyond the region of thought and heart — though still within personal acts? A monotheist (muwahhid), for example, has a series of obligations upon his shoulders that Tawhid entails: that he pray; that he invoke the name of God at the beginning and end of every undertaking; that he slaughter the sacrificial animal only in the name of God, and so forth. Is it summed up at this level alone? Or is the commitment that Tawhid lays upon the monotheist individual, and upon the monotheist society, higher than the level of personal commands and individual obligations? The commitment that Tawhid lays upon a monotheist society reaches the most fundamental issues of that society. Such as what? Such as government, the economy, international relations, and the relations of individuals with one another — for these are the most important rights for the administration and the life of a society. We believe that the commitment of Tawhid, and the responsibility that comes to rest upon the monotheist's shoulder, stands at the level of the fundamental obligations and the fundamental rights of a society. Let me state the matter in a single phrase, and then turn to its finer and more subordinate points. In a word: the countenance of a monotheist society differs from that of a non-monotheist society. It is not that enforcing a certain law in a monotheist society — that law, or ten laws like it, also enforced in a non-monotheist society — makes that other society monotheist too. No. A monotheist society is utterly different from a society that is not of this kind. It differs in its frame, in the way its parts are arranged, in the whole social body built upon Tawhid, upon the worship of the One, upon orientation toward the One. It is what they call today the social system. The social order, the social system, and the social form of a monotheist society run entirely contrary and divergent — at times opposed and contradictory — to a non-monotheist society. Dissect this phrase, and within the heart of the social order, the social frame, and the social organs you find discussions that can be understood by drawing on the new and modern cultures current in the world — and still more by drawing on the Qur'an and the sources of Hadith. But let me state it in a more particular and concrete way. We present Tawhid in the form of a resolution that has articles, and we shall set out those articles one by one. What articles does the Tawhidic resolution have? After negotiations between two groups, two fronts, two persons, the binding agreements are issued as a resolution; in the same way, the monotheists of the world are bound by their Lord, by the God of Tawhid, to put this resolution into practice and carry it out. Here is its first article. On the principle of Tawhid, a person has no right to render servitude and obedience to anyone or anything except God. This is the first article of the Tawhidic resolution. And when we say "anyone and anything," the scope is very wide. See where servitude and obedience apply: Did I not take a covenant from you, O children of Adam, that you should not worship Satan? Did I not take a covenant from you, and make a pact with you, O children of Adam, that you should not render servitude to Satan? We have explained Satan at times in the course of various discussions. Satan does not consist of his lordship Iblis alone, nor of some hidden, concealed thing that never comes into view and cannot be touched by hand yet may be found everywhere in a person's life. It is not only this. Satan is something vast — a general concept. Satan means the evil-stirring forces, the evil-producing power external to the human being. The evil-producing forces, but outside the bounds of a person's own existence — this becomes Satan. And the soul (nafs) — which is Satan's companion, Satan's instrument and tool of action — we can define in parallel: the evil-stirring and evil-producing forces within the human being. The soul and Satan: the commanding soul (al-nafs al-ammarah) and Satan; the one from within, the other from without. These two are forces that produce corruption, that produce evil, that produce deviation and degradation. Satan means anything whatsoever outside your existence that obstructs you on your path, produces evil, ignites flames, becomes a thorn in the road, becomes the wolf and the robber of the road — or brings the wolf and the robber into being. This is Satan. We will reach this verse in the discussion of prophethood and the prophetic mission, and there I shall, God willing, translate it for you: every one of the prophets sent by the Lord had enemies from among the satans of jinn and men. We will later specify who these enemies were, what kind of people they were, from which groups and classes they came, and why they showed enmity. Satan is this general concept. "That you should not worship Satan" — what does it mean? It means: do not render servitude, do not become surrendered and obedient to those evil-producing forces. And Tawhid means this. When I say "Tawhid means this," I do not mean that the whole of Tawhid is this — no. The subtleties and fine points of Tawhid have their own place; the other aspects and bodies of Tawhid — some of which we ourselves may perhaps discuss in the future — also have their own place. But this too is one body, one aspect, one face of the pillar of Tawhid: not obeying, not rendering servitude, not submitting to impositions. There is a hadith I have read repeatedly on various occasions, narrated on the authority of the Imam (peace be upon him) in our authoritative books, among them the noble al-Kafi, Usul al-Kafi. The Imam narrates it as a sacred tradition (hadith qudsi), in a few sentences, a few phrases. The wording that has stayed with me, and is the closest and most detailed, is this: By My might, I shall surely torment every subject community in Islam that gave its allegiance to the wilayah of a tyrannical leader (imam ja'ir) who is not from God — even if that community is righteous and pious in its own deeds; and I shall surely pardon every subject community in Islam that gave its allegiance to the wilayah of a just leader (imam 'adil) from God — even if that community is wronging and ill-doing in its own deeds. So here is the overall meaning of the hadith: obedience to a power that is not from God and from the representative of God — obedience to a center that has not taken its inspiration from the center of the Lord's power — this is at the level of shirk, or is shirk itself. The people who do this, who are afflicted with this pain, this calamity, this great social disorder, may be orderly and well-arranged people in their own personal affairs — righteous and pious (barratan taqiyyatan), wary, God-fearing, watchful. Even so, this great calamity causes God Almighty to withdraw His regard of grace and mercy from this ummah, and to render them tormented, punished, and afflicted with His chastisement. This is the hadith. Why? Because obeying other than God, rendering servitude to other than God, is contrary to the purpose for which God created the human being; it is contrary to a person's perfection and elevation; it is contrary to a person's freedom and emancipation. That freedom and emancipation is the prelude to a person's ascent. For if those freedoms are absent, and bondages instead of freedoms take hold and cling, then a person cannot attain that intended flight, cannot reach the summit God has appointed, cannot grow, cannot reach perfection. Like a plant over which a lid has been placed. Like a plant to the base of whose stem a strong wire has been tied. Like a plant around which dozens of means of preventing growth have been created. This plant cannot grow; and when it does not grow, it bears no fruit; and when it bears no fruit, what benefit is there in its existence, what effect is there in its coming? So why did it come? Why did it appear? Was it not only because it was meant to bear fruit? Obeying other than God and rendering servitude to other than God is just such a blight for the human being. In any case, throughout the Qur'an, there are abundant verses on this. These verses occurred to me without much investigating — only a brief search — but they are worth mentioning here. Now to our real task: translating the verses. That is the basic aim. We must become somewhat acquainted with the melody of Tawhid in the Qur'an. When it comes to knowing the Islamic teachings, we have fallen badly away from the Qur'an. Either we busied ourselves with a series of vulgar fancies — fancies so empty, so baseless, that they are emptier than any emptiness, laced with superstitions and false imaginings. And it was precisely this — this alluring exterior and empty interior — that could not withstand the waves of materialism, and we saw how it perished. Or, at the opposite pole, we busied ourselves with dry, lifeless, ineffective argumentations in the field of Tawhid. What philosophical discussions — ineffective and dry! See how much the theologians (mutakallimun) discussed Tawhid, and how ineffective those discussions were in forming and bringing into being a monotheist society. If a matter connected to life is discussed for a hundred years, is it possible that after a hundred years it would still have no effect in life? For hundreds of years they discussed it in a dry form — alluring in appearance and brainless in substance, abstract, detached from the world of reality and cut off from the external world. But now that we wish to draw on Tawhid for the building of a new life, we look at those discussions and see that they have no connection to it at all — as we ourselves would say, "like a stone beside the human being." All that circularity and infinite regress, all those words — and now that we wish to use this Tawhid for the external world, what do we have? Whereas if we had returned to the Qur'an and sought Tawhid there, we would have found it — for across hundreds of verses, with the finest expression and the most eloquent methods, the Qur'an has set out the aspects and the various organs of this body, this frame, this edifice of Tawhid. Then it becomes clear what the monotheist life is, and who the monotheist human being is. This is one portion of these verses, the verses of Tawhid, which one must look at more closely, with pondering. Let me explain these few for you. And on the Day We shall gather them all together… — the talk is of the Resurrection, that Day when We gather all creatures, the whole of them. "Then We shall say to those who associated partners with God" — those who committed shirk, who set up partners for God — "'Stay in your place, you and your partners'" — you and your imagined partners, said in a tone full of mastery, in a voice full of rebuke: "Stay in your place, you and your imagined partners — those whom you reckoned to be the rivals, the contenders, and the consorts of God." "We shall separate them" — We shall cast a separation between them and the imagined partners they had supposed for God. Even at a very ordinary, superficial glance, you understand that on the Resurrection these partners — those who had been chosen as partners of God — are not that lifeless Hubal of carnelian, which has no resurrection. This is not, as the common saying goes, some idol brought along and told, "Stand in your place — stand up!" It is not Manat, nor Lat (Manat is a particular idol, the statue, let us say, of a girl, or of an angel; Lat is another angel; Hubal is the same; and 'Uzza is the same). It is not these that are spoken of. The talk is not of some statue in some idol-temple of Rome or Greece, nor of the calf in the land of Hinduism; it is of that human being who was chosen as a partner and rival of God. To them it is said: halt in your place. Stop! The very first rebuking address that, on the Resurrection, makes plain the negation of every god's power beside God's is just this: "In your place!" And what an effect that has on the Resurrection. It is said to me and to you: the rival that a person had imagined for God — that polytheist Arab, or that polytheist non-Arab, his Persian one, his Roman one, his Abyssinian one, his Indian one, his Egyptian one — the rival that a person had imagined for God and chosen for partnership with Him, on the Resurrection stands in this situation. He and his followers, halted by the divine command that forces them back, stand off to one side under God's rebuking address and His compelling, wrathful Halt. "We shall separate them" — We cast separation between them — "and their partners will say, 'It was not us that you used to worship.'" The partners, the imagined rivals, turn on their followers with the utmost ingratitude and say: "You did not worship us in the world." They are like an accused man who, out of helplessness, to lift the guilt from his own neck, clutches at any means, any word. We saw it in yesterday's dialogue, in the verses I think we read, and we see it in other dialogues in the Qur'an: "Those who were oppressed will say to those who were arrogant, 'Rather, it was the plotting of night and day…'" and so on to the end. Groups whose misguidance was mutual fall upon one another on the Resurrection and line up against each other. The one who committed shirk and took a partner in place of God wants to seize that partner by the collar and dash him to the ground, to say: "I accepted you in place of God, and now I am afflicted with this calamity." And the one who, in the world, was the object of servitude and worship — he too, to clear himself, stands ready with the utmost ingratitude to reject the followers and adherents of his own world, to disavow and disown them. "It was not us that you used to worship." "God suffices as a witness between us and you" — this from the tongue of the partners: between us and you, God suffices as witness. "Indeed, of your worship we were unaware" — we were heedless of your worship; we had no idea at all that you held toward us any notion of servitude and bondage, for your own selves. "There every soul will be tried for what it sent ahead" — this is where every soul, every person, is tested for what it accomplished beforehand. The deeds performed in the world — there, a person himself becomes the object of testing and trial. "There every soul will be tried for what it sent ahead." "And they will be returned to God, their true Master" — they will all be brought back to God, who is their Master and their true Lord. "And there will vanish from them all that they used to fabricate" — everything they used to invent by way of slander and calumny will vanish from them. Every motive that lay in a person's heart for obeying other than God will be forgotten. Everything a person kept in his heart as a pretext for rendering servitude to other than God — everything he thought would be a weapon in his hand on the Resurrection — will be stripped from his hand. Sometimes, to fashion a pretext for his shirk, a person invents thoughts, imaginings, and fancies, and finds excuses for himself; he manufactures excuses that look justifiable, ostensibly legitimate (shar'i). But on the Day of Resurrection, which is the Day of the tribunal, the moment he comes forward and lines his excuses up — first, second, third, fourth, fifth — and starts to count them, he sees that none of it remains: all of it void, all of it ruined, all of it false. "And there will vanish from them all that they used to fabricate." There is another possible sense to the verse. In the world a person supposes he has supports and props — the very ones he worships, the very ones he obeys and serves, the ones his heart leans on with warmth. But on the Day of Resurrection none of that warmth and reliance, none of these protectors and supporters, can lift a burden from his shoulder. Wretched one! "And there will vanish from them all that they used to fabricate." Take note of how the Qur'an argues here. It establishes its point from one side, from one corner of the matter. Sometimes it does not argue head-on; instead the Qur'an prepares the ground for an argument from within the very brain of the person himself. In these verses God Almighty wishes to prove that one must render obedience and servitude to God alone, and He enters by this route. "Say: Who provides for you from the heaven and the earth?" — from the heaven, the life-giving rain; from the earth, the vital materials. "Or who possesses hearing and sight?" Do not confuse sam' (hearing) with the ear. The particular organ we call gush (ear) in Persian is, in Arabic, udhun. Sam' is the state of hearing, the power of hearing; if it is also applied to the ear, that is by way of that relation. Of someone whose ear has been cut off, they do not say "his sam' was cut off"; they say "his udhun was cut off." The name of this organ is not sam'. Basar is the same. Basar does not mean the specific member we call the eye; it means seeing, sight — that is spirit, and this member is body. If they do call this member basar, it is by way of that very possession of the eye. They do not, for example, call a blind eye basar. "Or who possesses hearing and sight?" — Who is it in whose ownership and in the grasp of whose sovereign authority lie the faculty of hearing and the faculties of sight? Who has given you this perception, this understanding, this power? Who can take it away from you? In reality this verse points to the possession of insight, to the possession of the power of understanding and reason — that you, O human being who are now meant to think and answer this question, are a possessor of hearing (sam') and a possessor of sight (basar). "And who brings forth the living from the dead?" — The apparently living from the apparently dead: a woman dies while pregnant, and afterwards her child is alive; they bring it out from a dead mother. Or from the dead sperm-drop, from the dead body, from a thing in which there is no life, We bring out the living. From this dead earth, from a soil that is itself dead — though it is the treasury of thousands of life-giving materials — from its very heart We brought you out, and even now We are bringing human beings out. For what is the original substance and primary root of human beings, other than these very vital and nutritive materials that come from the ground and the earth?! So "He brings forth the living from the dead," with several possibilities, all of them acceptable. "And He brings forth the dead from the living" — who is it that draws out the dead from the living? The dead child from the living mother's womb; the evil person with a dead spirit from the good person possessing a living spirit; and so forth — such possibilities as come to a person's mind. In any case, it is a sign of the perfection of the Lord's power: to bring a living thing out of a dead thing, to draw a dead thing out of a living thing — this is the sign of the perfection of God's might and the powerful grasp of God's power. "And who governs the affair?" — Who directs the creational affair of the universe? Who places this force of gravity in the earth so that a person can live upon it? Who deposits the capacities of life in the earth, the sea, and the mountain as a trust? Who gives us the power to extract them? Who, with astonishing order, brings into being this sun, moon, and stars, and the far, and farther, and yet more distant worlds? Who sets that moon at a fixed distance from the earth? Had He set it farther, human life on the earth would have been impossible, because the seawater would have spread over the whole surface of the earth; and had it been nearer, again life would have been impossible, because the water would not have stayed on the surface but would have sunk into the earth's depths. Who makes the sun and sets it at a fixed distance from the earth — so that were it nearer than that limit, the earth would be uninhabitable from heat, and were it farther, from cold — and so on? Now, what shall we say about the artistry and power of the Lord! The books written by the hands of the world's empirical scientists in this century of ours, the twentieth century, are so rich in content that merely to recount them would take a speaker like me several days here — and I am not much in favour of that. "Who governs the affair?" — this question was put to the polytheists of the time when the revelation came down, but it is put just as much to me and to you in the twentieth century. "Who governs the affair?" — Who directs the whole universe? From the heart of the atoms to the depths of the most distant worlds, He turns it with the hand of power. "Who governs the affair?" — Who is it? Without bias, without prejudice, think knowingly, so that you may find the real answer. "They will say: 'God.'" They will say "God." Some say "God" without thinking, because that was their belief even then. I think a little, I reflect — "They will say: 'God'" — and I say: it is God. This wondrous order of the created world is from God, and from Him alone. It is the hand of His power that turns this wheel. What we see with the natural eye and the instrument-aided eye, and what we do not see today but will see decades hence through the advance of knowledge, are nothing but the offspring and products of God's power. "They will say: 'God.'" Well, now that it is God — "So" — seize them right here, O our Prophet — "Say" — to the human being, the addressee of our call, O human being, the one charged with bringing the human being to perfection — "Say: Will you not then be wary of Him?" Do you have no piety (taqwa), no wariness? What does it mean? It means: do you not fear this great God, this God who produces greatness, that you should set up another beside Him as a partner in obedience and in servitude? See — if the creational governance of the universe is in His hand, why should the legislative governance of the universe not be in His hand too? I once, in that mosque, was explaining the Surah of Tabarak. "Blessed is He in whose hand is the dominion (al-mulk), and He has power over all things; who created death and life that He might try you as to which of you is best in deed." I went on to describe how the universe was created, the heavens and the earths, and the like. But where does it begin? "Blessed is He in whose hand is the dominion (al-mulk)." Mulk means government — it means power is in His control. Which power? The power of creation is His; the power of legislation is His too. He who adorns the creation of the universe — why should He yield the field to another in its legislation? And that other is himself made and fashioned by Him. He who has brought into being the natural laws and norms (sunan) in the world and in the human being — why should He hand the making of civil and penal law over to weak individuals, deficient intellects, limited knowledge, and feeble wills, the likes of the ordinary human being? Why? Why should He not administer society Himself? Why should He not lay down the law Himself? Why should He not Himself appoint the power that guards and keeps watch over the law, and support it? Imamate, wilayah — why should He not? Why should He not appoint an imam? Why should He not appoint a guardian (wali) from God's side? Should He leave it to the deficient intellects of the people — why? "That is God, your Lord — the Truth (al-Haqq); and what is there after the Truth except misguidance? Then how are you turned away?" After this it reaches the fourth verse. "Say: Are there any of your partners who guide to the Truth?" O our Prophet! Once more, by way of guidance and instruction, speak; say: "Are there any of your partners who guide to the Truth?" Among these imagined partners you appointed for God, do you know of anyone who guides people toward the Truth? Do you have anyone? It is certain — and by "certain" I mean with strong probability — that the intent here is again not the idols, the stone and wood and such things. No one would think it likely that these would guide people. Well, how do they guide? Plainly the intent here is the living idols: those who have held some authority among the authorities, some power among the powers, whether religious or worldly — which we have written on the following page. That is, like Pharaoh; like, suppose, Shurayh the Judge in his time, or anyone else in that field, in this vein. "Say: Are there any of your partners who guide to the Truth?" Among these whom you have set up as rival, partner, and contender of God, is there anyone who would guide people toward the Truth? And what is the answer of these polytheists? They might well reply: "Yes; these whom we have chosen — not only do they guide; they are the very embodiment of the Truth." Guidance? That is nothing — they do even more than guide. That is why their answer is not recounted. But they are wrong to deem the partners of God to be guides. In answer to them, you yourself say: "Say: God guides to the Truth." Say: it is God who guides people and intellects toward the Truth. Why? Because God created the Truth. God knows the fine points of the Truth, and God calls people to the Truth. One who was opposed to God necessarily calls to something opposed to the Truth; so it is God alone who summons to the Truth. Now that it is clear God calls toward the Truth and the imagined rivals do not — "Is He then who guides to the Truth…" — here is an inference one must and can draw with the God-given intellect and discernment: "Is He, then, who guides to the Truth more worthy to be followed?" — is the one who leads toward the Truth more deserving to be followed? — "or he who does not find the way unless he is guided?" — or the one who cannot even find the way himself unless someone takes his hand and leads him? After all, whom must you follow? God, who is Himself the Creator of the Truth and the Guide toward it? Or the one who, if he wishes to reach the Truth, must have his own hand taken and be led? "A blind man leading another blind man." He wants to guide us? He himself is compelled to be guided; someone must guide him. Now, in your view, who is the talk about here? This partner who can or cannot guide people — who, if he wishes to be guided, must have his hand taken and be led — what sort of being can he be? Is the intended one the cow of the Hindus and the cow-worshippers? The statue that the Qurashi and non-Qurashi polytheist worshipped? The sacred fire of the Mazdeans and the Zoroastrians? The statues inside the synagogues of the Jews, or in the idol-temples of Rome and Greece? Certainly none of these is meant. The one of whom it can be said that he guides or does not guide — who, if he wishes to find the way, must have his hand taken and be led — is a human being who claims leadership, who claims that he brings society to felicity. The Qur'an wishes to say: God brings the human being to felicity, God brings him to the wellspring of reality, God brings him to the Truth. Those who possess nothing of themselves cannot. "Or he who does not find the way unless he is guided? What is the matter with you?" — what is the matter with you? That is, O people who do not reflect and do not understand — "How do you judge?" How do you judge? How do you grant a field and an opening to any other than God? This is one word concerning Tawhid. There remains the negation of the servitude of the god-pretenders (khuda-nama): those who pose as God, who give themselves a godlike air — the living idols of mankind throughout history. This servitude is denied whether they wear the garb of religious powers — in parentheses: the Ahbar and the Ruhban (the rabbis and the monks) — or the garb of worldly powers — in parentheses: the Taghut, the Mala', and the Mutrafin. Islam once made a certain proposal to the People of the Book, and it stands in the Qur'an. There, the negation of obedience to non-divine powers comes in this form: Say: O People of the Book! Come to a word common between us and you: that we worship none but God, and that we associate nothing with Him, and that none of us take others as lords besides God. But if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are submitted to God. "Say: O People of the Book! Come to a word that is equal between us and you" — one you can examine for yourselves.