Ep 22 — The Outcome of Prophethood (1)

Session 20: The Outcome of Prophethood (1). delivered Tuesday, 16 Mehr 1353 / 21 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Ra'd (13:16-18). Say: God is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the All-Subduing. He sent down water from the sky, and the riverbeds flowed each according to its measure, and the flood carried a swelling froth. And from that which they heat in the fire, seeking to make ornaments or utensils, there rises a froth like it. Thus does God strike [the parable of] the true and the false. As for the froth, it goes away as scum; but as for that which benefits people, it remains in the earth. Thus does God set forth the parables. For those who respond to their Lord is the most beautiful reward. But as for those who do not respond to Him — even if they possessed all that is on earth and the like of it besides, they would offer it as ransom. Theirs is a terrible reckoning; their abode is Hell, and what an evil resting place! The next verses are from Surat al-Saffat: Our word has already gone forth to Our servants, the messengers: that they will surely be the ones helped, and that Our hosts will surely be the victors. So turn away from them for a while, and watch them — for soon they too shall see. Do they then seek to hasten Our punishment? When it descends upon their courtyard, evil will be the morning of those who were warned. So turn away from them for a while, and watch — for soon they too shall see. Glory be to your Lord, the Lord of Might, above what they ascribe. The prophets were commissioned and stepped into their societies carrying that very lofty, progressive aim we explained on the previous days. It is the most progressive of all aims — even by the cultural standards of the age of light and human awareness, the twentieth century. It is the aim of bringing humankind into one class, of leveling human beings, of casting out ignorance and poverty and oppression and exploitation and class division. With this most precious, progressive, and lofty aim they set out. The lives of God's prophets yielded one harvest: an unbroken chain of activity and striving and struggle. From the very beginning of the mission, never again to sleep in comfort, never again to slumber on the bed of ease, never again to taste pleasure and rest, but to struggle unceasingly — this is the summary of the story of the divine prophets. And their lives ended no more gently, as the religious sources teach us. Some had their heads severed from their bodies by the tyrants and despots of the age and carried off as a trophy; some were placed within a tree and sawn from head to foot, cut in two; some passed from this world in exile and distress. Not one of them amassed any wealth, however little. Not one, at the end of his life, left behind a palace, an apparatus, and vast riches, as the rulers and worldly leaders of this world do. This is the summary of the lives of the prophets of God; these things we have come to know. A question now arises. As it stands in our minds, and as we read in the history of the prophetic missions, the prophets all passed their lives in struggle and striving, and many of them drank the draught of martyrdom. So was their work, then, a fruitless and useless work? Did the prophets meet defeat in history? Is it as the simple-minded of the world still imagine it to be — an idea the anti-prophetic powers are not displeased to have lodged in the minds of the common people — that the prophets gained no fruitful result from their striving, and that across the whole of history, oppression and tyranny and inhumanity and rebellion and unbelief have held sway? Is it so? We believe that it is not so. Consider these dear deputies of God — whose chain began with Adam and Noah and Abraham, and in whose chain the choicest of creation came one after another. These men not only were not defeated, not only did not fail, not only did not see what they said and what they wanted in the world, in history, in society meet with defeat. Rather, among all of humanity, among all those who have ever run after some aim and goal and striven for it, no one has had the chance of success that the prophets had. This is our belief. We believe that the outcome of prophethood and the end of the prophets' work, throughout all history, in the time that is past, has ended according to what was desired — and so it will be in the future too. And we shall prove this. There are two matters here, and this is a topic that must be grasped and known. The first concerns the chain known by the name of prophethood and messengership — that is, the caravan of the prophets from Adam to the Seal [of the Prophets]. What did they do? What did the totality of them accomplish? Did they push things forward, or did they go bankrupt? That is one matter. The second concerns each of the great divine prophets, in his own time: did he succeed, or did he meet defeat? These are two questions, and I would like to finish both of them today, God willing. By your own measure, if you reflect, you will find that you would like to understand this matter. This is something worth knowing — by the very criterion I have always placed in your hands. It is beneficial in the sense that it does more than increase our information. Many words increase a person's information but bring him no benefit. There is no harm at all in all of you, this whole gathering, now being aware of how the tiny particles of the rocks in the volcanic mountains of the moon are composed. To know it — is that bad? But is it beneficial? No. Much of the information we run after, or that we are made to run after, is of this sort. We sit and listen and speak and study and research and put pen to paper, and bring our life to its end — and when we look, we see a heap of empty information, useless information, that did not bring us a single step closer to Paradise and to the good pleasure of God, nor a single step closer to the sound, authentic Islamic society in this world. It did nothing at all. Yes, it had only this benefit: that we could pride ourselves, could believe that we are very learned, very knowledgeable, and could close upon ourselves the window of receptivity and learn nothing more from anyone. This was its only benefit. This matter I am presenting is beneficial in the truest sense: it brings not just awareness but awareness joined to commitment. It is that kind of faith I was explaining and speaking of to you here on the third, fourth, and fifth of the month. Now the first question. This chain whose members are called the prophets — from first to last, what flower did they pin upon the head of humanity? The prophets came and took a being who could not even, at the level of an animal, tell the road from the pit — a being in whom even instinct was not so capable, not so path-opening. And they raised this being up to the level of one from whom even the angels of heaven must come and learn something. They brought humankind from the lowest depth of savagery and ignorance up to the level of a civilized human being — so that if he wishes to live by their teachings, the loftiest, the most beautiful, the most eloquent manifestations of creation will appear in his life. The prophets treated human beings like a schoolchild — I am trying to bring the matter down to a very low level — who knows nothing, not even the alphabet. For one year they labored over him, and he reached the second grade; but the teacher of the first grade, in the very midst of this work, when the child had reached the second grade, had laid down his own life over it. They labored for another period, and he reached the third grade; but the teacher who had brought him from the second to the third lost his life on this path. They labored for another period, and he reached the fourth grade; and again that compassionate teacher, that kind father, that aware guide — over all the time he spent raising the pupil to a higher grade, a higher rank — lost his life, departed this world, spent his days in hardship. Grade by grade, step by step, stage by stage, they kept bringing this little child up, and up, and up. Now, when you look, you see that his culture, his knowledge, his insight, his sensitivity stand far higher than in that time two periods before the present, and he is at the peak of progress and comprehension and thought. You look, and the teachers are not there. Where are the teachers? One gave up his life in the midst of the first grade, while he was bringing this slow-witted pupil up. Another, while these very pupils were learning something from him, met his end at the end of the year: over some disagreement, over some matter, they gathered together, rose up against him, and killed him. The teacher of the third grade in another way, the teacher of the fourth grade in another way. The teachers are not there; each teacher carried out his mission and, to outward appearance, died in failure and perished. But did he really fail? Think well; see whether that teacher really failed. What, after all, was the teacher's aim? Did not this compassionate teacher want exactly this? He wanted this pupil to rise from the black dust to the summit of culture and knowledge and understanding — and has this not now come to pass? So the teachers did not die as failures. Yes, they died; yes, they never attained the affluent, comfortable life of this world; yes, they never saw with their own eyes this sapling come to fruit — but did they fail? No, they did not fail. Their aim was precisely this: that this human being should traverse the first and second grade; that this ignorant, unaware student should climb the road with difficulty, with hardship, with toil, until he reached the summit of the peak — and now he has reached it. The prophets were just like this: Adam, Noah, Lot, Hud, Salih, Shu'ayb, Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus, and thousands of other prophets throughout history. Their work was to bring this human being up, to teach him knowledge and understanding, to prepare him for ordering the life to come, to give him the necessary substance. And this work was accomplished — even though, along the way, a number of these prophets were killed in a horrible, pitiable manner, departing from this world without seeing this end. And still humanity is moving forward. Today the world is more prepared to hear the true word of Islam than it was a thousand years ago. Humanity is more ready to accept the divine government today than it was twelve or thirteen hundred years ago — and a thousand years from now it will be readier still than today. On the day that our Imam of the Age — may God hasten his noble relief — went into occultation from sight, humankind was not yet ready to accept a revolutionary reforming Imam with sword in hand. This is why an Imam who must spread the carpet [of justice] among the people does not spread it out. And had that noble one wanted to rise up, make a revolution, and overturn society, the unfavorable conditions of that time would certainly have kept him from building the society he desired. The experience of the noble Imams of the Prophet's household had reached its limit. This society had become so corrupted — the oppressive, tyrannical hands of the despotic Umayyads and Abbasids had so worked this field for the worse, poisoning and corrupting it — that no sound plant could any longer be grown in it. And so the Imam, peace be upon him, was hidden from sight. The day he comes — how will it be? On that day he appears — and we do not know whether it is ten years away or ten thousand, nothing is known at all — humanity will have reached readiness. It will be ready to hear and to accept the true word of Islam, ready to carry the elevated and lofty Islamic society upon its own shoulders, ready for the Qur'an to be put into practice. But in the time of the Imam of the Age it was not ready — and who has done this work? The teachings of the prophets have done it, and the Imams are the followers of the prophets. In the discussion of the Imamate, when I expound its philosophy, I will explain what the philosophy of the Imam's existence is. So the prophets were not unsuccessful in history. We see that every day humanity has moved forward and added to its own age, coming one step closer to the peak of perfection and elevation. What more do we want than this? What do the prophets want? The Lord of the worlds wants to bring this unripe, raw substance, by a natural movement, toward its natural and innate destination — that is, perfection and elevation. This the Lord of the worlds has willed, and humanity will certainly reach that point of ultimate perfection. This is the determinism of history: it means just this, and in that sense whoever coined the phrase spoke correctly. These are precise discussions. The course of humankind is toward elevation and perfection, and toward the promised paradise of this world — that is, humanity will one day see a day in which there will be no oppression, no evil, no ugliness, and everything will be according to its desire. Such is the creation of the human being, and the creation of the world: this being, in its own course, will at last arrive at such a destination — it must arrive. In that era humanity will have ready all that is necessary for its perfection. Then it will enter the channel of progress and elevation, and with the utmost speed it will move toward God — that is, toward absolute perfection. And the further we have come from the beginning of human history up to this time of ours, the closer we have drawn toward that destination. This is the determinism of history. Such is the creation of the human being, and the creation of the world: God has so created that human beings move toward progress and elevation, willy-nilly. As for the "willy-nilly," you must derive its meaning in the course of these discussions — for later, when we tie it to the subsequent discussion, what it means will become clear. The will of human beings is intensely involved: it is the wanting of human beings that brings them to progress, and this wanting will be there. This is one of the Islamic principles, and in the Islamic worldview it ranks among the certainties: that the end of humankind is in accordance with goodness. Why? Because God Most High created the earth and the heavens in accordance with truth, and He created the human being too with a truth-seeking innate nature. Since the human being possesses will, he must move along the path that accords with his innate nature in order to reach that destination. And who can present this path to him and tell him that if you do such-and-such, you have acted in accordance with your innate nature? The prophets come for this. They come to show humankind the path of innate nature — that is, to hasten and ease his course toward a good end. So human beings are moving forward; humanity draws day by day closer to felicity and to the destination of goodness, and this is because of the movement that the prophets gave it. The prophets set it in motion. If some delay has occurred in the middle of history, in this or that stage, it is because of a relative distancing from the teachings of the prophets — but in the end this was its course. This is one matter in general. Here is the conclusion we drew from the first question. The great divine prophets, though each of them met with deprivation and failure in his own life, nonetheless drove humanity as a whole toward progress and elevation — and the prophets were the agents of it. It was the prophets who pushed a person toward that intended destination, toward the human end kneaded into him; they set him moving and helped him travel this road. That is the first question. Now the second question — the one that interests many people more, the one I will make clear for you. When a prophet sets a movement going in the world, raises up a revolution and an uprising, can we say this revolution ends well? Can we hope its outcome is good, or not? What is the general rule here? Some say this: however hard we look, wherever a true word left a tongue, wherever the melody of truth reached an ear from some quarter, in the end it never came to fruit — it was choked off. Out of this they have built an "experience." The experience of human history, they say, has always shown us that the prophets failed. Grant even that they succeeded overall — fine — but in the end they could not bring the revolution they raised to fruit. Not in a single place could they bring truth to power and destroy falsehood. So what should we do? Should we too refuse to lift a hand, refuse to draw it from our sleeve, refuse to follow the path of the prophets? If the great divine prophets themselves could accomplish nothing in their own time, and in the end falsehood has always gained the upper hand over truth — even if only seasonally, by stages — then let the truth-seekers and the truth-speakers of the world sheathe their swords, go lie down to sleep, and know it is of no use — unless some hand of power reaches out of a sleeve, an unseen hand comes forth and does something. This is the logic of many people, the very logic I mentioned: the tyrants of history take great pleasure in it. This is the logic the bullies of the age have always wanted the people to hold as their belief — that no striving, no activity, no struggle in the path of truth will ever reach a result. This is what the tyrants of the world have always wanted. The political bluffs of the world's heads of state, which you read so much of in the newspapers that carry world news, serve exactly this purpose. Take the man who has only a few hours or a few days left before the throne of his rule collapses and he steps down from the peak of the presidency to become an ordinary man. Even then, days before, that same man is bluffing: "We will crush our enemies, we will wipe out our opponents, we will keep ruling." You saw this yourselves, quite recently, on a vast global scale — saw it with your own eyes, read it, learned of it. A power of that magnitude suddenly falls and turns into an ordinary man; yet a little before the transfer he says, "They cannot, they cannot, they cannot touch us, our position will not be lost" — and then we see that it was lost. These bluffs serve exactly this purpose. They always want to make the people believe that nothing can come from your hands, because our power is a power you cannot even imagine. Every means and resource is at our disposal, and you have none. Do you imagine that these things arose in the world only today? No — they have existed at every point in history. There is one episode so telling that whenever I recall it, I marvel at the cunning of al-Mansur the Abbasid. Al-Mansur the Abbasid was, as you know, the greatest and most powerful of the Abbasid caliphs, and the second of their line. In his time, opposition began to stir from the margins of the religious community. Among those who put al-Mansur under severe pressure were Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah and Ibrahim ibn 'Abdullah, the two sons of 'Abdullah al-Mahd. These two men fought al-Mansur fiercely, and he was left helpless. Everything was at his disposal; these two self-sacrificing brothers had nothing but faith and a handful of believers. Yet in the face of their relentless striving, al-Mansur had lost his footing. So rumors about the power and might of his apparatus were spread among the people, with the sole aim of keeping the true believers and the genuine Shi'a from joining the two brothers. One ran like this: al-Mansur put it about that he owned a mirror, and that when he looked into it he could tell exactly where Ibrahim ibn 'Abdullah was — and woe to the man in whose house, or with whom in flight, al-Mansur's mirror should reveal him. This is the very story of the mirror that the tyrant kings of history had fashioned a thousand, two thousand years before al-Mansur — Jamshid and this one and that one — in the form of the world-revealing cup. Its purpose, no doubt, was the same: that the enemy should believe he could never act outside the sight of these powers. They had stooped even to this. So the tyrants of the world ask of the God of the two worlds — a God in whom they do not believe — that the people should imagine the prophetic missions, the great divine prophets, and the envoys of truth to have always been doomed to defeat. They ask that the people suppose no truth-worshipping melody will ever meet a favorable answer from the nature of this world — that the people despair of any movement ever growing and bearing fruit against falsehood without being crushed. But is the reality of the matter really like this? A number of minds, uninformed and under the sway of these powers, have imagined it so; the people have supposed that the prophets, their followers, and the Imams have always been defeated, and that every movement in the world will be defeated. Are we, then, obliged to accept it? Should we set aside the Qur'an? Should we refuse to hear correctly the word of the Qur'an, which recounts to us the very opposite of this logic, and hear instead the word of false fancies? No — we will not. We turn to the Qur'an; we take a lesson from it as to what the outcome of the prophetic missions is, and what effect the revolutionary movement of the prophets and their followers can have. Let us learn this from the Qur'an; then we return to the text of history, and see that history too bears witness to this matter. In these very verses, the Qur'an strikes a parable and tells us: No! In the world there is a truth and there is a falsehood; the truth remains, the falsehood is annihilated. Water flows and streams down from the mountains, through the rivers; froth appears on its surface; the froth dies, the waters remain. Falsehood is that very froth that will die; the water is that very truth that will remain. So far, as the Qur'an teaches us and as historical reality confirms, every prophetic mission that has ever appeared in this world, from first to last, did two things at once. In the chain of history's prophetic missions, each performed its deed and moved humankind one step forward — and each also carried within itself the possibility of success. The matter is not as al-Mansur the Abbasid kept pouring into the people's ears when he said, "It is not possible, people; it is not possible for you to carry anything forward against my power." That is not how it stands. Nor is it as the powers of history, over time, made the people understand and instilled in them — that against the worldly powers who stand upon falsehood, truth will have no room even to draw breath. No; the opposite is true. The prophets have everywhere had the possibility of success, and the followers of the prophets everywhere have this same possibility, and they will surely succeed — but on two conditions (here is where I said that the human will is involved in building the future of history). If these two conditions are met, then every movement grounded in religion, in Qur'anic and Islamic thought, that has been carried out or will be carried out throughout history, will succeed forever and be victorious. There is no need for a miracle either. A miracle need not take place for the adherents of religion to succeed and be victorious — no; without any hand reaching forth from the unseen, if these two conditions are met, Islam and the Qur'an will have the essential possibility of success. What are those two conditions? The first condition is faith — a belief grounded in awareness, a conviction that accepts commitment, an assent joined to striving and movement. The second condition is patience [sabr]. What does patience mean? It means resistance: not fleeing the field, not abandoning the work at the sensitive and dangerous moment. Wherever you see, throughout the history of the prophetic missions, a prophet defeated by the tyrant of his time, it is because his followers, those around him, did not have enough faith or enough patience. And every time you see that truth has advanced, it is because they possessed brimming faith and the patience it required. Is there any witness from the Qur'an to this? Yes; there are several. The verses I recite today are the intellectual foundation, and many other verses state the same matter. Here are two of them. Take this verse: Do not be faint, and do not grieve; for you are the higher, if you are believers. This is a verse of the Qur'an — not a narration someone might cast doubt on, saying perhaps its chain of transmission is weak; nor is it an ambiguous [mutashabih] verse that some might question, saying we do not understand its meaning. No — it is clear and plain. "Do not be faint" means: O Muslims, do not become weak. "And do not grieve": do not be sorrowful. "For you are the higher": you are the higher, your hand is the upper one, you will be the victorious, you will overcome the enemy, your thought will at last be seated upon the throne of the world's governance. And its condition? "If you are believers" — if you have faith, if faith exists, this is so. You say: "Sir, I have seen Imam al-Sadiq — the blessings of God be upon him — struggle so hard against the tyrant of his time and yet fail to seize the government." Yes; but that was because those around him — many of his friends, many who claimed to be his Shi'ism — were like you and me: impatient, weak in faith. Did you want Imam al-Sadiq to reach power against the Lord's established custom in history? This very thing is itself the proof that no miracle and no unseen hand is meant to appear in the field of conquests and victories. Had a miracle been meant to occur, it would have occurred, so that Imam al-Sadiq might reach power. Instead, Imam al-Sadiq was in the end killed at the hand of the tyrant of his own time; and so was Musa ibn Ja'far. This was because his friends and followers did not have, to the necessary degree, the patience that was needed; faith and conviction and commitment had not been stored up in their souls to the degree they should have been. If today, too, it is like that, the result is defeat — the defeat of Islam, the defeat of the Qur'an, the condemnation of the Muslims. But suppose today we became like the time of the Prophet! The Muslim of the Prophet's time had a faith that was certain and beyond doubt. His patience was the very patience before which the angels of heaven were small — a patience that, on a day in the month of Ramadan, in the heat of the Hijaz, with a fasting mouth, fights the enemy and digs a trench. That is the patience of that Muslim. Seek help through patience and prayer. With the weapon of patience, conquer your enemies; with patience, carry your aims forward. This is the miracle that belongs to patience. The hand that must come out of the sleeve and do something — it is the hand of human patience; patience. We even misconstrue patience. We have imagined that it means sitting back to watch how things turn out. It does not. Sit without activity, without striving, without throbbing effort, and the end is abasement — irreligion and worldly ruin. the loss of this world and the hereafter — that is the manifest loss. But if you go forward with patience, the end is both religion and this world. This is the end the Qur'an tells us of. These verses are from Surat al-A'raf; go and look, reflect on them. What I am saying — my heart wishes that you would act on it as a religious mode of thought. Truly pay attention: if you see that it accords with the Islamic standards, accept it as a mode of thought. This is the Qur'an, in Surat al-A'raf, from verse 120 onward — indeed even before these — the verse I have in mind is verses 126 and 127. The matter is raised through the affair of Pharaoh and Moses: Moses comes and states the divine call, and Pharaoh does not accept it — not only does he not accept it, but he even threatens Moses. After all these words, the sorcerers of Pharaoh come; their sorcery accomplishes nothing against the Mosaic miracle, and in the end they themselves come to faith. Pharaoh threatens them, saying, "I will kill you. Why did you believe in Moses?" All this passes, and after the affair of Pharaoh's magicians and their defeat by Moses, then it is like this: And the chiefs of Pharaoh's people said: … The chiefs — the leaders and notables of Pharaoh's people — said to Pharaoh: "Will you leave Moses and his people to spread corruption in the land…?" Are you letting Moses and his people, the believers in him, his party, his throng, go free to make corruption in the land, to cause disorder? …and abandon you and your gods? Are you letting them set aside you and your gods? Is it like this? "He said…" — Pharaoh, in the face of this speech and this casting of doubt, said: No; I will destroy Moses. He prepared a harsh assault against Moses, devised a new scheme for crushing the party of the Moseans in Egypt. What was it? He said: We will slay their sons and let their women live. Pharaoh said: I will not leave Moses be; I will not permit what he wants to do. Rather I will kill their young men and keep their women alive. This is a new plan. Pharaoh had struggled against Moses in every way and thought Moses would be destroyed — but no, even his sorcerers and magicians are coming to faith in him, and the sorcery will not stand up against the miracle. So he falls to thinking of carrying out a severe measure. The plan becomes a plan of severity: we must resort to severity. What shall we do? All the young men who have inclined toward Moses — these we will kill. All their women we will keep alive. "and let their women live" — keeping the women alive, no doubt for debauchery, or to ruin their lineage, or for something of this sort. The matter had turned hard now; the party of Moses found themselves facing the severe-measures plan of the Pharaonic apparatus. This is the place where the bones of the elephant tremble; this is the place where firm and sturdy hearts are shaken — is it a joke? Someone like Pharaoh saying, "I will make them suffer terribly; I have a plan for them, to leave them not a single young man." "We will slay their sons" — I will kill their young men. This is the place where the Moseans must be charged up; in this very sensitive and dangerous moment they must not feel defeat. A sentence came to my mind from one of the great men of our own history, from about a hundred years ago, fifty or sixty years ago. They used to quote a sentence from him in these constitutional struggles and the like; his name is much on people's tongues. They say he used to tell his companions, his friends: "Fight, struggle. At the very moment when you see that the work is hard, struggle still. Until you see that you will certainly be defeated, keep on; reach the point where you see that now you will certainly be defeated; and when you reach the point where you see that you will surely be defeated, struggle still — then you will be victorious." And this is a correct saying. A nation, a community, an individual who wants to strive for his own welfare and salvation is hopeful, at one moment, that this striving will bear fruit; when the severity increases, his hope too diminishes. If he lets go of the striving, then assuredly his striving will no longer reach a result. But if he carries on his striving in that very place — continues it so far, goes forward so far, until he sees that it is certainly futile — if at the very moment he sees that this striving of his is futile, he strives still, that striving is successful. Moses is using this scheme to mobilize the Children of Israel. When the Children of Israel see that they will certainly be defeated — because Pharaoh is resolved to kill all their young men — against the new Pharaonic scheme, Moses too presents his own new scheme. What does he say? When they find themselves facing this situation, Pharaoh speaks thus; Moses, in turn, answers this Pharaonic proclamation: Moses said to his people: … Moses says: "Seek help from God and be patient." Ask aid of God and be patient. Continue, resist, do not leave your striving half-finished — hope breathes within this. Why? "Indeed, the earth belongs to God" — the earth is God's; "He gives it as inheritance to whom He wills among His servants" — He gives it and grants it to whomever of His servants He wills. That is, we are the servants of God; Moses tells the Children of Israel: you are the servants of God; the servants of Pharaoh — their work will reach no result. The earth is for the servants of God. "And the [good] end belongs to the God-fearing" — the outcome of the work, the end of the affair, belongs to the people of piety. This is the Qur'an, and historical reality shows us the very same thing. Take Abraham, whom they once cast into the fire — one day we see that in Mecca and at the House of God he forms a monotheistic society, and for centuries after him that society endures. Take Moses, who one day is locked in such conflict with Pharaoh, with the Children of Israel under such pressure — another day we see him given the command to enter the holy land: "O my people, enter the holy land…" — go there, and there form the divine, monotheistic society. Take Jesus son of Mary, whose striving and activity during his short sojourn upon the earth reached no outward fruit. Yet after he ascends and departs from among the people, within one or two centuries the greatest powers of that day fall under the sway of the Messiah's thought. The vast Roman Empire itself falls under the sway of Christian thought, and the emperor becomes a Christian, a believer in the religion of the Messiah. Our own Prophet was under just as much pressure in Mecca — for thirteen years they arranged for him the most severe tortures and conditions. Then he comes to Medina, forms a government there, brings a society into being, establishes an order, drives human beings toward perfection, and crushes his foundational enemies, casts them to the ground. Under the shadow of what? Under the shadow of faith and patience. Wherever there was faith and there was patience, Yes, if you are patient and God-fearing… — where faith, deeds, and patience existed together, where piety stood alongside faith, victory came. This is one of the customs of the world, the custom of the Lord in history. Yesterday it was like this, today it is like this, tomorrow too it will be like this. Every religious power that has managed to rise, or to endure, has done so under the shadow of faith and patience. Today too, those who love the Qur'an, Islam, Tawhid, prophethood, the sacred Islamic principles — those who wish these could take the reins and govern people's lives in the world, those who wish to see God sovereign in the world — let them strengthen within themselves two things: faith and patience. If faith and patience grow strong within us, Indeed, the earth belongs to God; He gives it as inheritance to whom He wills among His servants, and the [good\ end belongs to the God-fearing,nofn] — but without faith and without patience it cannot be. This is the answer to our two questions. The first question was: did the divine prophets, in the aggregate, succeed or fail? In the aggregate they succeeded, all the prophets — because they wanted to bring humankind up, and they brought it up. I have raised this matter before, across many lessons, in Qur'anic exegesis, in the discussions after the prayer, and each time I gave an example; if I gave you all of them here it would take too long. I gave you one: the schoolchild. The prophets in the aggregate succeeded and were triumphant; they did not fail. But now take each single prophet — each single one of the divine, monotheistic, revolutionary movements: did it succeed or not? Here there is a general rule. Whichever one possessed sufficient faith and patience succeeded; whichever one lacked it did not. "Say: God is the Creator of all things." Since He created it, He can say what its outcome will be. And because He wants next to speak about the outcome of truth and falsehood, He says first: We created this world, We know the customs and laws of history, so hear them from Us. "Say: God is the Creator of all things" — He is the Creator of everything. "And He is the One" — the sole and unique; "the All-Subduing" — the powerful and mighty. "He sent down water from the sky" — He is striking a parable for you. This verse is so beautiful in its Arabic phrasing that, unfortunately, those unfamiliar with Arabic cannot properly grasp the beauty. He does not announce beforehand, "I am striking a parable." So you who are listening do not realize this is a likeness, or what it applies to; you do not catch it. Only at the end do you understand what is meant — He is striking a parable. "He sent down water from the sky" — from the sky He sent down water, a rain. "and the riverbeds flowed each according to its measure" — rivers and streams of various sizes flowed; from the rainwater, small rivers and large rivers flowed. "and the flood carried a swelling froth" — this flood coursing in the rivers carried upon its shoulders a swollen, prominent froth. When you stand beside a river the flood-water is bringing along, what you see is not the water; it is froth. The water is beneath the froth. This froth, prominent and surging upon the flood-water that flows in the river, is showing itself off. You see froth; beneath the froth is water. Let us go to another place — the other example is this: "And from that which they heat in the fire" — the things they heat in the fire, like mineral substances and iron, which they place in the fire; "seeking [to make] ornament or utensil" — to make some adornment, they place gold in the fire so as to make jewelry; they place iron in the fire so as to make objects; they place copper in the fire so as to make things. These things they place in the fire to make from them an ornament and adornment and finery and wares — in these too there is "a froth like it" — a froth, like the froth of the river-water. There too, when they melt this iron, they see froth upon it; it too has a froth. When they melt gold, it too has a particular froth. There the froth was upon the water — but what was the essence? What was the life-giving substance, the water or the froth? The water. And what met the eye outwardly? What was making a display? What showed itself more? The froth. Here, in the melting of iron, is the thing desired the iron or the froth? In the melting of gold, the gold or the froth? The gold, of course; the iron, of course. And what is the froth? A parasitic thing, a superfluous thing. Yet which comes more to the eye? That froth — not the gold and not the iron. Once these are set up, He says at once: "Thus does God strike [the parable of] the true and the false" — this is how God shows you truth and falsehood; the parable of truth and falsehood God strikes for you in this way. "As for the froth" — that is, the thing you saw to be visible, that very froth, that is the false. The thing hidden beneath the froth — the water, the gold, the iron — that is the truth. Now that you have learned this much of the parable, hear from God how it ends. "As for the froth, it goes away as scum" — the froth goes to waste, to nothing; it is annihilated. Froth on a river is not permanent; it is there one instant, gone the next. When you open the water onto your field, what remains for you is the water, not the froth; the froth perishes. "As for the froth, it goes away as scum" — that froth goes to annihilation and emptiness. "and as for that which benefits people" — the water, the iron, the gold, all that benefits people, tarries "and remains in the earth"; it is not annihilated. "Thus does God set forth the parables" — this is how God strikes the parable for you. He means: the truth remains. The call of the prophets is truth, the movement of the prophets is truth, and it endures. The falsehoods that puff out their chests against the prophets, show themselves off, rebel, run riot — they are froth, bubbles upon the water, doomed to perish. This is the parable that God strikes. The verse then applies this same parable to the field of the Muslims' social struggles. "For those who respond to their Lord is the most beautiful" — for those who answer their Lord, the most beautiful of outcomes and rewards; the good end is theirs. The end of the work belongs to those who respond to the movement of the prophets. "But those who do not respond to Him" — but those who refuse and step onto the path of falsehood, they — "even if they had all that is in the earth" — if the whole surface of the earth were theirs, "and the like of it with it" — and as much again besides, "they would offer it as ransom" — they stand ready to give it as ransom to rescue themselves from the predicament. Did you not see this in history? Did you not see the conflicts of truth and falsehood — how the leaders and chiefs of falsehood were rolled up like a scroll, and then, if they could, stood ready to give the whole world, and themselves, their lives, their position, just to hold on? "For them is the evil of the reckoning" — for them the worst of reckonings; "and their refuge is Hell" — their abode is Hell; "and what an evil resting place!" These are the verses of Surat al-Ra'd. The verses of Surat al-Saffat, which we have also rendered in these writings, say this very same thing. "And Our word has already gone forth to Our servants, the messengers" — Our command for Our deputed servants, the prophets, has already passed and been concluded; beforehand We took the necessary decision concerning them. What is that decision? "that they will surely be the ones helped" — they are helped, and helped by Us alone. "And that Our hosts will surely be the victors" — it is Our soldiers who become victorious. I told you its condition is that very faith and patience. On the battlefields of the Prophet, the Messenger of God called the people to patience. On the battlefields of the Commander of the Faithful, the Commander of the Faithful called the people to patience. They always said: be patient. And what does patience on the field of battle mean? What does patience in the state of struggle mean? It means not growing weak in the struggle, not breaking off the striving, not leaving it half-done — this is the meaning of patience. If the Muslims of the world, on the path of cultural and economic and political advance, take up these two factors today too — the factor of faith and the factor of patience — then the Islamic community will gain the upper hand, culturally and politically and economically, over the unbelievers and the enemies of religion. Let the Muslims not imagine that a stamp of nullity — of ill-repute, of backwardness, of poverty, of abasement — has been struck upon their foreheads; no. Let them not imagine that the enemies of religion and of Islam, scattered through every part of the world, these very hostile global powers, must forever ride the backs of the Muslims and lord it over them and exploit them; no, never is it so. If the Muslims of the world, if the Islamic countries, if the Muslim masses and nations — in short, if the great Islamic ummah, six or seven hundred million strong today — acquire faith, and store up patience as well, they will be victorious over the whole world. This is the Qur'an's counsel to all Muslims in all times. This is the harvest of our discussion today. I wanted you to know that the outcome of the prophetic missions is good. I wanted you to know, from the Qur'an, that those missions and their uprisings will in the end be victorious, and that we today are the followers of the prophets. Why should the Islamic nations feel weak? Why? Why should you feel inferior? Why imagine that the enemies of religion can always triumph over the Islamic nations and countries? Why? No; it is not so; it is exactly the opposite — provided that we have faith and patience. So from today's session let us at least take this benefit into practice: let us know the meaning of patience, and let us strive to perfect the faith within ourselves. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, make us among the followers of the prophets. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, bring into being within us a strong and rich substance of faith and patience. O Lord! Make us partake of the fruits of faith and patience. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, make the Muslim nations and the Muslims of the whole world victorious over their enemies. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, those who, in any spot of the world, in any form, strive to weaken the Muslims, to humiliate the Muslims, to hold the Muslims back — destroy them. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, in any spot of the world, each of those who strive for the benefit of the Muslims and of Islam and of the lofty Islamic ideas — grant them success and aid. O Lord! Cut the hand of the enemies of religion from the Islamic countries and from the Islamic nations. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, cut from the head of humanity the hand of the stubborn, obstinate enemies of religion and of the Muslims and of all humankind — namely the Jews. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, make us the true followers of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad. O Lord! Make every day of our life more aware, more learned, more earnest, more believing, and more patient than the day before. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, take under Your protection all the oppressed and wronged of the world. Annihilate and crush and humble all the oppressors and tyrants of the world; Guide our hearts toward Yourself; Make our souls flourishing and alive with Your remembrance; Make our intention in this speaking and listening and sitting and rising sincere for Yourself alone; Keep polytheism and hypocrisy and ostentation far from us. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, grant deliverance, very soon, to the innocent prisoners in every spot of the world that they may be. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, fulfill all the sound and reasonable desires of the community of Muslims. And remove all the personal afflictions from among the Muslims. (One thing I wanted to mention is this very subject of the mosque: that we have not wished to make use of the ordinary kinds of help that are sometimes used in mosques.)