Ep 21 — The Opposing Groups

Session 19: The Opposing Groups. delivered Monday, 15 Mehr 1353 / 20 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-An'am (6:112-113). And thus We have appointed for every prophet an enemy — devils from among mankind and the jinn, inspiring one another with embellished speech in delusion. Had your Lord willed, they would not have done it; so leave them and what they fabricate. And [it is] so that the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter may incline toward it, and be pleased with it, and so that they may commit what they are committing. We said that prophethood is a social resurrection, and that one of the principles of this resurrection is the negation of social classes: in the environment the Prophet of God builds and shapes, there is no class of the weak, the enslaved, the destitute, and the deprived on one side, and a class of the powerful, the bullies, and the privileged on the other. As we know from our own Islam — and indeed all the heavenly religions are essentially of the same character — Islam has never posited, never even imagined, a situation in which one person, because he is weak, because he is powerless, would be unable to obtain his own rightful due. Such a supposition has no place among the suppositions of an Islamic government and of a monotheistic, divine order. This is why He says: No community will be sanctified in which the weak one cannot take his right without stammering — meaning this: suppose in some society a person is weak — not at the head of some power, not holding one of the political or social posts — and that ordinary person cannot take his right without a stammer of the tongue. Then know that such a society is not a saved, successful, victorious society. And even if the weak one took his right but took it with a stammer of the tongue — went and stood there, and his tongue stuck a little, and his face flushed a little — this too is of no use. Does a child of his own house, going toward the kitchen, toward the food and the storehouse and the source of food, to take the food that is his by right, feel any shame, any sense of humiliation, any sense of being a burden? Certainly not. In a society shaped the way Islam teaches and instructs us, and the way it wishes us actually to act, the situation is like this: all are children of one environment and members of one body, without any difference or distinction whatsoever. This means that the Islamic ruler — even one like the Commander of the Faithful (may God's blessings be upon him) — has, in the Islamic society, exactly as much right and exactly the same rights as any one of the individuals of the common people, and only that much right. In the Islamic society, the very highest authorities cannot use force, bullying, or even harsh speech against an ordinary human being. Consider how far this went. Even in a period when the course of the Islamic society had changed and, according to our belief, had drifted away from the axis of divine and authentic vicegerency — that is, away from the axis of the imamate of the Commander of the Faithful (may God's blessings and peace be upon him) — even then, this held. A governor, a powerful man, ruled some region far from the Islamic capital; his son — not he himself — struck a single lash against an Arab. At that, a high-spirited Arab gets up and crosses that whole distance, comes to Medina to seek justice and to file his complaint. The caliph writes to the governor that both the governor and his son must come; he does not say "Send your son alone" so that the governor might excuse himself in reply and say "I am unwell at the moment" — no, the governor himself must come too. The governor and his son both come. When the caliph asks them why he harmed this Arab and struck him with a whip, the son of the governor says: "O Commander of the Faithful, O caliph! Tell him to bring a witness." He turned and said: "His witness is precisely this — that with such hardship he rose up from Egypt and came all the way to Medina. In the desert, where would he bring a witness from? Should he find four upright witnesses to attest that you struck him in the desert?! If you struck him in the lonely desert, what is he to do? Had you not struck him, this motive would not have arisen in him to rise up all that distance from Egypt and come on foot to Medina to complain to me. Lay him down." They stretched the governor's son out in the mosque and began to flog him. When the son rose up, [the caliph] said, "Lay the father down too." The clamor and outcry of 'Amr ibn al-'As went up — the governor was 'Amr ibn al-'As — "Me, why? You say my son struck him; why are you striking me?" He said: "For the reason that your son struck him relying on you, struck him relying on your power. Had you not been his father, had you not held power, had you not been his protector and supporter, he would have struck his own head against a stone before striking this Arab in the desert. Lay him down." For whose time was this? This was the time when Islam had already separated from the God-willed course, when our Commander of the Faithful was not in office. Those who were in office — we do not grant them the right of vicegerency — and yet, even so, it was like this. This is the Islamic society. I have said these things with a purpose: I want you to draw the conclusion from today's discussion yourselves, not to take it from me. Before I even say what comes next in this discussion, you should already be arriving at the very same conclusion. This is the society that Islam wants — and every monotheistic religion in the world wants the same — a society with no force, no bullying, no piling up of wealth alongside the deprivation of the destitute. This very school, this very religion, says: I never saw a heaped-up fortune except that beside it I saw a right that had been wasted. If wealth were distributed per capita, this much would never reach Mr. Rockefeller. The reason so much has reached him is that he has piled his own share on top of the share of ten million other people, twenty million other people, until it grew to this. A ten-millionth of it is his; a hundred-thousandth is his. I never saw a heaped-up fortune except that beside it I saw a right that had been wasted. The Islamic society, the ideal society by the logic of the monotheistic religions, is exactly this kind of society: no force, no bully, no one wielding power over another. Should anyone try to use force, they will not let him. Should anyone try to spread class difference in a society built on the Islamic order, they will not let him do it. Why? Because this order was one the Prophet had built. You have seen these skilled tailors — when they fashion a garment, it may be torn and tattered, riddled with holes throughout, and yet its seams have not come undone, its cut has not been lost. The Islamic society they punctured with holes again and again, yet the cut of the society held. Its tailor is the Prophet; its architect and craftsman is the capable hand of the Messenger of God. The God-willed, God-made, Prophet-made order is an order of this kind: no force, no bullying, no exploitation, no despotism, no absolute rule of one person or one group over others. In such a society — which God wants, and of which He says people must be gathered together in this form — there is no ignorance, no superstition-worship. In this community the people are all bound to think. They must each find their own path; and once they have found it, they must tread it. In that society all are duty-bound to defend the rights of the weak, the deprived, and the oppressed. No one there has the right to say, "My own interests are enough for me, my own troubles are enough for me; I have no time to attend to anyone else's affairs" — because all are together, all parts and members and limbs of one body. Can they speak this way? In that society there is no laziness, no division and discord, no blind submission that moves sightlessly after Zayd and 'Amr and Bakr. This is the society the Prophet wishes to build, with his powerful hand and with the teaching and inspiration of God's revelation. Its great characteristics, its main outlines, are these: knowledge and awareness; justice and equity; a single class; the negation of social classes; the negation of exploitation; the negation of the accumulation of wealth; the negation of despotism and absolute rule; the negation of taking the side of falsehood; and the obligation to take the side of right and truth. These are the features of this society. Here is the main point of my words, and it connects to today's discussion. Suppose a prophet comes into an ignorant society and states his message: he declares his aim, says what kind of society he wants to build, says how he wants to arrange the social order. If a prophet speaks these words, who will struggle against him in this ignorant community? I have said what kind of society the Prophet wants to build. So it is very clear who will oppose him and struggle against him. The first to struggle against the Prophet are those who live off class difference. They are alive because they can milk a group of people, because they can wrongfully use the energies of a group of innocent human beings. If they were placed in the same rank, the same class, as those human beings, then off whom would they live? Whom would they milk after that? These become opponents. Another group who will oppose this prophet's call, and the establishment of such a society, are the wealth-hoarders. They are eager to pull money out of this one's pocket, that one's pocket, out of the knotted handkerchief of some deprived old woman, from the bottom of the cash-box of some grocer, from the meager till of some street vendor, and to pour it into their own enormous, infinite purses. By founding usurious institutions, by establishing a system of usury and taking interest on money, they are eager to turn every business, every trade, all economic activity, in the end to their own profit. Is it not so? Sir, what is your occupation? You are a tradesman in this bazaar; whatever business you do — if you tell me, so many percent of it is for you, so many percent for such-and-such bank and so-and-so and so-and-so. See how much credit you have used, see how much interest you are paying, and then see for whom you are running. When the system was a usurious system, when everyone in a society pays interest while a group take interest and devour it, then all the businesses turn to the profit of the usurious institutions. And in such a society — where wealth and wealth-hoarding are the noble, legitimate occupation of a group of human beings who consume and lord it over others — suppose a prophet comes, a reformer comes, and says, "Sir, wealth-hoarding is forbidden!" Then it is obvious this one will oppose that prophet; it is quite natural. So this too is one group. One group, then, are the wealth-hoarders who will struggle against this prophet. Another group are the despotic rulers who will struggle against this prophetic call and divine mission — because the moment there is no god but God enters a society in its true form, its meaning is that Pharaoh has risen up out of that society and departed; either he has gone, or he has become one of the ordinary individuals of the people. This, after all, is the meaning of there is no god but God. If there is no god but God becomes, in its true form, the source of the building of a society, then in that society, formed on the basis of there is no god but God, it is God who stands at the apex of the pyramid, not Pharaoh. God is placed there — not Pharaoh and Haman, not Nimrod, not Shaddad, not Mu'awiyah. So it is very clear that Pharaoh and Nimrod and the other despotic powers of history will struggle vehemently against the prophets' call to establish such a society. This too is one class of the opponents who struggle against the prophethoods. Yet another class are the rabbis and the monks — those who work on people's minds. Throughout history the rabbis and monks try to keep the people in ignorance, and they do it to protect the social standing they draw from the teaching they hand the people. Because if that teaching were sound — a teaching that builds lives, awakens, enlightens — then this class too could no longer keep its lordship, its spiritual leadership, its privileges of wealth and prestige. Jesus son of Mary — his struggle was with the rabbis and monks long before it ever reached the Roman emperor, for in his own time it never reached [the emperor]. Who was it that did not want the Messianic call to take root in the corrupt Jewish society of that day? The rabbis of the Jews, the scholars of the Jews — and they knew Jesus well. In the era of Islam's rise, who was it that did not want the prophetic movement, the Muhammadan movement and the Islamic mission, to take root? Those for whom, once the Prophet came, once those sound teachings came — once that pure, delicious, thirst-quenching wellspring of Islam came and filled the minds to overflowing, opened the eyes, and lifted away every ambiguity — there would be no more room for lordship and a comfortable life. It is plain: where Islam is, the fabrications of Ka'b al-Ahbar and 'Abd Allah ibn Salam lose all color and luster. When the sun of truth shines upon the precinct of human minds and thoughts, their superstitions and their darknesses dissolve and vanish of themselves. So the moment a prophet comes — the moment that prophetic society founded on awareness, on knowledge and clear-sightedness and free thought and enlightenment, that divine, monotheistic society, first begins to play its tune — the rabbis and the monks are among the first to sense the danger. The people's awareness works against them, and against the powers allied with them. Both they and their allies suffer harm — and those allied powers need not even be religious powers; they may be political powers, and they too suffer harm, and so they too sense the danger. I read this in that letter of the Fourth Imam (may God's blessings be upon him) to Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri. In it the Imam (peace be upon him) draws for al-Zuhri a picture so vivid that only today do we newly understand the very thing he explained that day — today, when we, in the twentieth century, turn back to history and watch religious and political forces coalesce to crush nations, destroy talents, and trample the rights of the masses. And know that the least thing you have concealed and the lightest burden you have borne is that you befriended the desolation of the oppressor [grew familiar with him and kept him company] and smoothed for him the path of error by your drawing near to him when you drew near, and by your answering him when you were called. This letter is in Tuhaf al-'Uqul, and its full exposition would take long — Muhammad ibn Muslim and Muhammad ibn Shihab are one and the same person, named after his father Muslim and after his father's grandfather Shihab. In short, then, one of the groups whom the coming of the prophet alarms and terrifies is this very group: the masters of religion — not the real religion, but the false, superstitious one. These too were among those who fought the prophets' missions and their liberating calls with everything they had. We see it in the call of Islam itself; we see it also in the affair of Abraham, the Friend of the Merciful — for when all the attendants of the idol-temples saw that the idols had been broken, they cried, "Who has done this to them?" and raised an uproar; and it was those very people who incited Nimrod to cast Abraham into the fire. The ordinary people knew nothing of the idol-temple; the idol-temple has a priest, it has attendants. It was those very people who, when Moses son of 'Imran appeared in the Pharaonic society, reassured Pharaoh and emboldened him, saying, "We, by our own magic, by our own soothsaying, will nullify his magic." It was those very people who, in the call of Jesus (peace be upon him), formed the greatest opposition, the front against Jesus, and blocked his call. Look — this ordinary Gospel, these very Gospels that are in hand — look, even with all the distortions, these things are there; these historical portions can still tell us the historical realities of that time. And again, it was these very people who, in the call of Islam — in the many stories you have heard — kept coming to pose questions, to test, to set people upon the Prophet; to stage the mubahalah (the mutual imprecation) with the Christians of Najran and the like; to reassure the people and bind them to the rotten, ancient stuff they possessed. When a new idea is raised in a society, the course of human thought is bound to move toward greater comprehension and awareness. That is the nature of the matter — the nature of the human being: old and young must set out after this new current of thought, and they do set out. Human beings want the new word more; whatever is more acceptable to their minds, they accept more. Moreover, "the lamp of falsehood has no radiance." Superstitions are falsehood; religious distortions and substitutions are falsehood. If some clear statement, some rational mind, exposed the emptiness of these superstitions — their nonsensical and baseless nature — the people would readily accept it. But it is this very class of rabbis and monks who, throughout history, did not let the people believe in the prophets, despite the clarity of the prophets' speech. Consider how the prophets came: with manifest authority, with a clear proof, everywhere carrying light with them, everywhere enlightening human beings. They never spoke obscurely, they never delivered pseudo-philosophical jargon to the people, they did not philosophize for the people; they spoke clean and straight and frankly with the people. Given all this, the people ought to have accepted very quickly, ought very quickly to have grasped the soundness and firmness of the speech of the prophets of God. So what caused so much obstinacy and bigotry, that the call of the prophets was not accepted quickly and easily? Why? It was these very soothsayers and rabbis and monks, that very class which the Qur'an names "the rabbis and the monks" — these were the obstacle. They summoned the people to greater and greater adherence to the wrong intellectual traditions and the inherited superstitious notions. These too were alarmed at the coming of the prophet, because they knew that if the prophet came, if the prophet was commissioned, if that society came into being — a society of awareness, of light, of intellectual growth, in which all the people are either learned or learners — there would no longer be any arena for the illiterate and the self-satisfied and the falsely revered, for the people who wish human beings to remain in unawareness and superstition; there would no longer be any place for these in that society. This is why these too struggled, with all possible vehemence, against the prophets, against the divine calls, against the historical missions. That makes four classes. Up to this point in my talk, I have not cited anything from the Qur'an; I have only explained this much: what kind of world the prophets come to build. I described that world for you — what kind of world it is, what kind of society it is. Then I asked: who fears such a society? The answer is obvious. In a society where the accumulation of wealth is forbidden, the wealth-hoarders are afraid. Where class difference is a sin, forbidden, abolished, the upper classes are afraid. Someone who has grown accustomed to living among the upper classes, seeing an order about to come into power that will bring him down and level him with the dust-dwelling people — or level the dust-dwelling people up to him, it makes no difference, for him it is the same — he can remain a lord only if there are slaves. Otherwise, if all are also lords, then he again is no lord: the lordship of the lords lies in their being the only lords while the others are slaves. If the slaves became lords, the lords would grow many, and cheap — their costliness lies in their fewness. This society that comes into being either brings him down and sets him at the level of the slaves, or raises the slaves up and places them at his level; either way, lords become many, so he falls from being falsely revered. So he too opposes. That absolute despotic power, too, will not be on happy terms with the call of the prophets and the rule of the prophet — and the reason is plain: he knows that when the prophet comes, the first one struck is he. This is the one whose heart longs to be — in the words of the late Mirza-yi Na'ini (may God's mercy and exaltation be upon him) in the introduction to Tanbih al-Ummah — the doer of whatever he wills and the ruler by whatever he wishes; the one who wishes to be, in the Qur'an's words, He is not questioned about what He does — who does whatever he does, says whatever he says, goes wherever he goes, and no one may ask "why." This too is one class; and the class of rabbis and monks we have already explained. These four classes, which we have marked out for you by mental analysis, happen to be named in the Qur'an as well. The people in the class of the chiefs and ringleaders of the powers and orders — those who hold these posts — the Qur'an calls the mala'. The chiefs of his people who disbelieved said — the mala', those people who fill the eyes; yamla'una al-'ayn, the people of pomp and majesty, those who, when they walk, with their glitter and their "clear the way, get back" outriders, make every human being submissive and small before them. The mala', those eye-fillers — one class of the prophets' opponents is these. Like whom? In the ignorant, Pharaonic order, like Haman. And Pharaoh said: O Haman, build me a lofty tower; the fixer and lackey of Mr. Pharaoh — and at the price of this servitude to Pharaoh, he is lord of all the rest, of all but Pharaoh. As it was said: "A fly that you set flying is a falcon." Haman is that very fly that Pharaoh has set flying, and it does the work of a falcon. He is weak, he is wretched, he is a lone man — dealing with him is within the power of any single man; but, relying on Pharaoh, he is all-in-all. So when he walks in the street, if you look, you see that the light around him casts such a curtain that a human being simply cannot bear to look at him. "Clear the way, get back, go, come — who is it? Haman is coming." Or take the ignorant order of Mu'awiyah: there it is al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, it is Ziyad ibn Abihi — these are that same mala'. They keep the ground around Mu'awiyah's throne so firm that wherever he looks, he sees a friend, a companion-counselor, a well-wisher. In the Qur'an this class is called the mala', and the aristocratic class is called the mutrafin, those afflicted with taraf — aristocratic indulgence, the great fortunes that breed misery, crime, and the trampling of rights; taraf. The verse we have written out here for you and will recite says exactly this: in every community, when We sent a prophet, its mutrafin, its aristocrats, were the first to oppose him — the first to strike up the tune of opposition. This too is yet another class. That class of intellectual ringleaders the Qur'an names with this very name, "rabbis and monks": Indeed, many of the rabbis and the monks…, whose verse we will now explain for you. As for that class of despotic powers — and here I am only conjecturing, offering this part as a probability — I think the Qur'an refers to them by the word taghut. Now taghut is a general word; as I said before, taghut means the rebellious power that stands in opposition to God. Your own carnal soul may be the taghut — for there is this hadith too: Your most hostile enemy is your own soul that lies between your two sides — your own soul, your own self, your own caprices and lusts, your own child, your own wife, your own beloved friend may be your taghut; and the great powers, too, may be the taghut. So taghut carries a general meaning. But because we see that in the Qur'an the taghut is everywhere set against Allah, and is shown holding very important roles and stations, we understand that the taghut is the highest stations of an ignorant order. In one place He says: Those who believe fight in the way of God, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the taghut — the believer fights in the way of God, the unbeliever in the way of the taghut; the taghut is in opposition to God. In another place He says: God is the Guardian of those who believe; He brings them out of the darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve, their guardians are the taghut; they bring them out of the light into the darknesses. The word taghut appears about seven times across the Qur'an, and the style of these expressions suggests what it means: those same upper despotic powers at the apex. In short, these four classes are the opponents of the prophets — not only in the time of Moses, not only in the time of the Prophet, not only in the time of Abraham, but in every age of history. Wherever a word of truth appeared, wherever a claim and a call arose for following the prophets of God and the heavenly books, these four classes lined up against it — either simultaneously, or one after another. This is the general rule, and it is the instructive point of these noble verses. First, in the first verse, in the first portion, He says: And thus We appointed, thus — meaning "thus." Thus, meaning what? Meaning "like you." Just as in your own case, O Prophet — likewise We appointed for every prophet — an enemy, an adversary — devils from among mankind and the jinn. These enemies are the devils of mankind and the jinn. I have already explained the meaning of "devil," and this confirms it: "devil" means the evil-creating powers outside the human being. One kind is that very Iblis who refused to prostrate to Adam (peace be upon him), the father of mankind. That devil is the most ill-famed of the devils of the world — the ill-fame of the other devils is laid to his account too, poor wretch. Every corruption, every wrong that any devil, whether of mankind or of the jinn, works in the world, people write to the account of that Iblis and reckon it from him. Yet some of these devils are the masters of that devil. — these devils who are the enemies of the prophet inspire and teach one another. Sometimes the class of rabbis and monks teaches the class of the mala'; sometimes the class of the mala' teaches the rabbis and monks; sometimes the mutrafin instruct both classes; and most often all three classes take their inspiration from the taghut. — some of these enemies give inspiration and instruction to others. — with beautiful, adorned, fair-seeming words, with fair-seeming speech. I will expound on this fair-seeming speech in a later chapter on prophethood. So fair-seeming — Pharaoh says: Let me kill this Moses. Why kill him? Indeed, I fear that he may change your religion — he says, "I fear that Moses will ruin your religion." This is the word of Pharaoh: he fears Moses will come and ruin the people's religion. Such fair-seeming words —, fair-seeming speech —, meant to create delusion and ignorance; they delude the people and one another. And had your Lord willed, they would not have done it — had God willed and decreed, these people would not have done this deed, would not have found the means. Had God willed to turn all these opposing classes to ashes in a single instant and scatter them to the wind, He could. But the divine custom (sunnah) is not so; God's law is not so. The divine law is this: that they should carry out their enmities so that the believer may be distinguished from the non-believer. The road should be a little uneven, so that the people whose thighs, whose shanks, are strong — who can run, who can go — may be recognized. On an asphalted road, where everyone can walk these few steps, [there is no test]. And had your Lord willed, they would not have done it — had your Lord willed and decreed, these people would not have been able to carry out these enmities; but God Most High never decrees a decree contrary to the custom He Himself has placed in the world. So leave them and what they fabricate — leave them with whatever they fabricate. And what does "leave them" mean? It means: do not grieve and be distressed at their words, do not weaken, do not lose your path. — the result of these words is this: this fair-seeming, deceiving, delusory speech draws the hearts that do not believe in the Hereafter under the influence of its false propaganda. That propaganda is made against the call of the prophets, against the word of truth and the true tune of monotheism — and this false, deceiving, fair-seeming propaganda deceives certain hearts and draws them to itself. But the hearts of whom? — the hearts of those who have no faith in the Hereafter. So the one who believes in the Hereafter does not so quickly become the dupe of false propaganda. — so that the hearts of those who do not bring faith in the Hereafter may incline toward it; and that they may be pleased with it — so that these hearts may be pleased with these words; and that they may commit what they are committing — so that they may commit what they are committing. See how, in this verse, He has alluded in summary that all the prophets have enemies — enemies of jinn and mankind, open and hidden — and these enemies inspire one another, teach one another. In these verses there is only this much. After these verses come verses from Surat al-Mu'min. And indeed We sent Moses with Our signs — truly We sent Moses together with Our signs; and with a manifest authority — with a manifest proof, a manifest power. What was that manifest power, that manifest argument? His strong logic, his word of truth, the staff in his hand, his white hand — signs by which every person, ordinary and extraordinary, was bound to accept his word. This is what We sent Moses with. And toward whom did We send him? Against whom did We send him to war? Who stood on the other side of Moses in that society? Read the verses with a little reflection and see how clearly it comes out: social matters of this weight, laid down in the firm verses, in their plain outward sense, with this clarity. To war against whom? Toward whom? To Pharaoh — toward Pharaoh. Who else? and Haman — toward Haman, the minister of Pharaoh, one of the heads of his kingdom, one of the eye-filling aristocrats, the same mala'. Who else? and Qarun — who is Qarun? Qarun is a wealthy man, a moneyed man. He is not the chief; he was not the sovereign of the society; he was not Pharaoh — indeed he even came in a later period. Yet even so He says that We sent Moses toward him too, sent him to war against him too. For Moses, Pharaoh and Qarun are one and the same: just as he fights Pharaoh, just as he fights Haman, he fights Qarun too. And Qarun's crime is only this: that he has treasured up wealth, gathered the people's possessions for himself. Set a tablecloth with food enough for fifty persons, and fifty eat of it, grow full, and much is even left over. But this gentleman has sat cross-legged, or spread out his legs, and pulled the food of forty-nine persons in front of himself. Of course one man does not eat the food of forty-nine — but he does not let the others eat it either. The food of forty-nine, and one person eats it; one person has imprisoned the food of forty-nine others — would that he had eaten poison instead! — he has imprisoned it. That is Qarun's trade: he has imprisoned the public wealth. That is why Moses comes to war against him too. The strange thing is that these three have nothing in common. Pharaoh is at the head of the government, one class; Haman stands beside him, a second; Qarun has no connection with them at all — he is wealthy, a treasure-hoarder, a third. Three classes, and yet their answer is one answer. All three take one stance in the face of Moses (peace be upon him), and say one word. What do they say? So they said: a sorcerer, a liar — they said, "He is a lying, falsehood-fabricating sorcerer." And when he brought them the truth from Us — when Moses stated and brought the truth, from Us, to these opponents, what did they say? Did they sit silent? Did they wait for Moses to come and cut the root and stem of their existence, the rotten tree of their life? Never. Just as Moses, with the order he proposed, was clawing at their life, they too clawed at the head and face of Moses. What did they say? They said: Kill the sons of those who have believed with him — kill the young sons of those who believed and gave their faith to Moses. Those who believed in the thought of this newly arrived prophet, this new and luminous and life-building thought — kill their sons. Kill them so that they may not be there, so that they may not threaten us tomorrow; kill them so that no spark may strike from their being; kill their young men. and keep their women alive. Now why keep the women alive? There is a reason. So that their lineage may be mixed; so that they may be drawn into shamelessness; so that they may be made to gorge upon the instincts; so that they may become cowed. This has several aspects. But then He says: And the plot of the disbelievers is only in error. They drew up these schemes, but the plots of the disbelievers go astray; they reach no result. It is like an arrow you shoot toward some enemy, some person, some target — and a wind comes and knocks the arrow off its course. They shoot the arrow, but the winds of God's custom come and carry it away from its aim. Let them lay their schemes against Moses. Here too you noticed: this verse names three classes together — the class of Pharaoh, the class of Haman, the class of Qarun. In another verse the mutrafin are named again, especially the class of Qarun. He says: And We did not send a warner into any town — We sent no warner, no forewarner, meaning no prophet, into any town, but that its affluent ones said — but that the mutrafin of it, the aristocrats and the wealthy and the treasure-hoarders of that town, said: Indeed, in that with which you have been sent, we are disbelievers — "We disbelieve in what you have brought, we do not accept it." And what was their reason for refusing? And they said: We are greater in wealth and children — "We have more money than you, we have more children than you," they said to the prophet. On what grounds? See how low the level of their thinking is. And we will not be punished — "We will not be among those who are tormented." And the last verse, from Surat al-Tawbah, concerns the class of the rabbis and the monks. O you who have believed — O you who have believed; Indeed, many of the rabbis and the monks — truly many of the scholars and ascetics; surely consume the wealth of the people wrongfully — without doubt they devour the people's wealth without entitlement; and bar [them] from the way of God — they devour their money, and they also turn them away from the path of God. And again He speaks of the class of the mutrafin, the money-gatherers, the treasure-hoarders: And those who… hoard up gold and silver — those who treasure up gold and silver; and do not spend it in the way of God — they do not spend it in the way of God; then give them tidings of a painful punishment — give them the tidings of a grievous, painful torment. We, therefore, in these few verses and in dozens of others across the Qur'an, see the mark of these four classes and recognize their enmities.