Ep 11 — Tawhid in Islamic Ideology

Session 9: Tawhid in Islamic Ideology. delivered Friday, 5 Mehr 1353 / 10 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Baqarah (2:165). And among mankind are some who take, besides God, rivals [whom] they love as they should love God. But those who believe are stronger in love for God. If only those who do wrong could see — when they behold the punishment — that all power belongs to God, and that God is severe in punishment. The theist says that beyond what we see there is a reality higher and more magnificent than anything we observe, and that without it these phenomena would never have taken form. The materialist says no. We cannot believe in, or commit ourselves to, anything other than what we see. However hard we have searched in our laboratories and experiments, we have found no sign, no trace, of this being you speak of. Let the dispute between materialist and theist stay in the books and discussions devoted to that subject. Here is our belief about the materialists of our age. We are not concerned with the Democritus of history, that other atheist materialist of ten centuries ago — Democritus or some such scholar who lived twenty or thirty centuries ago. We have no quarrel with him; he died, and even his bones have turned to dust. When the materialist of our time says there is no God, when he believes that beyond this world no other reality exists, he says it because he has suffered an intellectual and spiritual disillusionment with the school of theism. He believes that the building of today's world, the administration of human beings, the establishment of justice, and the removal of discrimination are all impossible except in the shadow of a materialist, materialistic mode of thought — and for that reason he turns his back on theism. Look carefully at the intellectual condition of those who, over the last fifty or sixty years, have embraced some of the "isms" of our time, and you will find the matter is exactly as we have said. It is not that they bear some obstinate grudge against God, nor that they reject Him because they lack a convincing rational argument for His existence. Most often there is no rational argument on the other side either; there is no argument for negating God — none at all, neither now nor in the past. You will not find a single person who says, "I say there is no God for this reason" — not one! Among all the materialists of the world, from the first day until now, there is not one who says, "I prove there is no God by this argument." Anyone who has something to say on this matter says, "It has not been proven to me that He exists; I did not understand, I did not accept the argument for His existence." And the Qur'an points to precisely this fact: They are following nothing but conjecture. They merely chase fancy and guesswork; otherwise they cannot negate God with any proof. So it is not on account of not having a rationally satisfying philosophy — the materialist side has no rationally satisfying philosophy either. What draws the materialist of our age toward what he calls the materialist school — and this is a subtle point — is that he imagines this school can better administer the world today. He says it can better eliminate oppression, better destroy inequality, better annihilate tyranny. Religion, he says, cannot do these things. Why does he say so? Because he knows nothing of religion — of the common, prevalent notion of it — except what he has seen in the hands of the people of the street and bazaar, in its traditional and imitative form. In short, he has no knowledge of religion, no information about it. If you ask him what religion is, he names a series of outward manifestations and says, "This is religion." And then comes his verdict: these are an opiate, these are the brother and equal of oppression and the oppressor, these cannot loosen a single knot in the people's tangled affairs, therefore — abandon it. When a person is faced with such a logic, the best and most correct answer is plain. Yes — if you have found a religion that colludes with the oppressor, that cooperates with the despot, that does not stand for one moment alongside the oppressed, that does not untie one knot in the people's tangled affairs, that has not the worth of a poppy seed, of a mustard's atom, for the people's today and tomorrow — then on our behalf you are authorized: wherever you found such a religion, reject it, do not accept it for a single moment. Because if a religion is from God, it is not like this. A religion that God sends is not just anything. It has a sign, a distinguishing mark, a standard seal. If this standard seal matches a given religion, we accept it; if it does not, we do not. (When I speak about prophethood and the Prophet — God willing, in the series of Quranic discussions — perhaps I will convey this meaning there in greater detail.) The Qur'an says: We have certainly sent Our messengers with clear proofs, and We sent down with them the Book and the Balance, so that the people may uphold justice. "We sent Our messengers with clear proofs" — We sent forth Our prophets with luminous proofs, "and We sent down with them" a body of thought and the practical instruments — the instruments by which they could judge and adjudicate among the people in their disputes. Why did We do these things? "We sent" — not just one prophet, not just Moses, not just the Seal of the Prophets, not just Jesus; "We sent Our messengers" — all the prophets were sent with this one purpose and this one aim. What is that aim? "So that the people may uphold justice" — so that human beings may live on the basis of justice and fairness. This is religion. If you have seen a religion moving in the opposite direction to the philosophy of the religions, know that it is either not divine or it has been corrupted. If you have seen it moving contrary to the philosophy and the line of march of the divine prophets and messengers, know with certainty that it is not the offspring of the Lord's revelation and of the prophets. This is quite clear. So, O materialist! — the address is to them — O materialist! O you who say, "I have seen religion to be incapable of administering human societies" — we ask: which religion? The religion of Islam? True Islam? The Muhammadan revelation? The sovereign Alawid way of life? Have you seen these to be incompatible with the administration of human affairs? Come, prove it; where is the incompatibility? This is an Islam that removes discrimination, that negates class division in the very heat of the world's class division, that pours together the wealth unjustly distributed and redistributes it per capita, that gives people equal opportunities and means, that takes governance out of the hands of human tyrants and entrusts it to the just law of God. It honors the base human being, the human being who is slapped about, the enslaver and the enslaved — the one who, for the sake of a single word, for the sake of a single bravo, for the sake of a single worthless coin, would commit the basest of crimes. It elevates this base, abject, despised human being, raises him up, makes him noble, adorns him with moral and human virtues — and secures all of this in the shadow of a just and firmly grounded order. Nor is the prophet's training a matter of individual cultivation — taking each person one by one by the hand, seating him in a corner of a private chamber, whispering incantations into his ear so that he may become upright, so that he may become a true human being. It is not that. Nor is it preaching, with the prophet sitting and telling the people, "people, this is bad, do it that way." It is a social order. In the ignorant atmosphere of that day, the prophet cast the foundation of Islamic society as firm as steel, in a determinate shape and mold. Then he brought human beings into this mold, into this path and this channel. And bringing them into this path was itself their becoming true human beings; the two were one. So if you say that the Islamic religion — the truly Islamic religion, with these characteristics — is not on a par with human progress, with justice, with the establishment of security, and with the meeting of human needs: no. We do not accept this. This is unfairness, this is unfairness. If a scholar who grew up in the hollow milieu of Christianity, who has seen of religious manifestations nothing but the false intercessions of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and the selling of deeds of paradise for money — if he gave himself the right to say this about religion, then you have no right to. You live a hundred years, eighty years, fifty years after him; you live in an era in which Islam is more or less showing itself, and has displayed and is displaying the sweetest and most precious human manifestations on the horizon of the world. If this is your meaning — no, this is not correct. But if you say: the hollow religions, the false religions, the fair-faced and foul-hearted religions, the religions that everywhere drag the people into lethargy and submission to oppression and pessimism and division and fratricide; the religion that says to the poor, "If you have no wealth, if you have no money, you need not strive in the way of money," and says to the rich, "In return for what you have, give a portion to the church or to some other religious institution, and it will be the atonement for all the oppressions you committed in the course of acquiring this money" — if you mean this religion, then in this we too are of one voice with you, and both of us are followers of the Qur'an: O you who believe, indeed many of the rabbis and monks devour the wealth of people unjustly and avert [them\ from the way of God.] O you who have believed, many of the Jewish and Christian scholars and ascetics devour the wealth of people without entitlement — "they devour" — and they do not even content themselves with that; "and they avert [them] from the way of God" — they also bar the people's path toward perfection and elevation. Would that they took the money and devoured it but left the path open! He devours their money and he severs their path. This is what the Qur'an says. We too are of one voice with you: a religion like that is not religion. A religion like that — any irreligion is better than it. For irreligion may at least sometimes refuse to become an accomplice to oppression and injustice, whereas such a religion may well become a means, a staff, a weapon in their hands. Well, in summary, this was a set of generalities about the belief in Tawhid — taken as a vision, as the answer to a single question: is there a God or is there not? Is there anything beyond this material world? Is there a hand of power or not? In answering it I said that the theist speaks this way and the materialist speaks that way. Set aside the war of theist and materialist and leave it for the books; what little of it pertained to us, we have said in a word or two. Now, a very important point. There are certain matters that are necessary for everyone in the domain of Islamic thought — everyone must know them, everyone must understand them. One of them is this. When you raise the question of Tawhid, do not raise it as a dry, simple answer to a scientific and cerebral question; raise it instead as a matter whose knowing or not-knowing is vital, decisive. Now I will explain. Suppose you are traveling along some road with a companion, and a discussion arises between you. You say, "Sir, the lands on both sides of this road are, in my view, salt-marsh; no crop at all can be grown here." He says, "No, sir, the lands on both sides of this road are perfectly suited for cultivating such-and-such." You say something, he says something; you offer a proof, he offers a proof. But how important is this discussion? You are going on, after all. The car is passing along this road at a hundred and twenty. You are not going to sit down and test the soil, nor buy a piece of this land to come back later and grow beets, nor answer some inquiry made about it; the question and answer has no effect on you whatsoever. It is only this: an answer to a question, a reply to some matter that has been raised, and nothing more. Whether you proved that this soil is barren and yields nothing, or he proved that no, on the contrary, excellent and remarkable beets come up green here — whichever of you proves his claim, your road, your work, your present motion undergoes no change. It is not that, if the land is proven barren, you say, "Well, now that it is barren, let us turn back"; no — you had no business with this place. And if it is proven fertile, you do not say, "Very well, now that it is fertile, come, let us pray two units of prayer at the foot of this fertile land"; no — it has no effect at all. Whether you prevail or he prevails, it changes nothing about your motion, this journey you are making, your future, your companionship — anything. This is one kind of discussion, one kind of question, one kind of answer to a question. At another time you are seated in the car, this same car at this same speed moving along this same road, and suddenly your friend says, "In my view, this road we are traveling reaches the north — whereas your destination is the south." You say, "No, sir, this road we are traveling reaches the south." He says no, you say no; the discussion flares up between you. If he proves his claim, the car must be turned around, you must go the other way — you had no business coming this way. If you prove your claim, you keep the same course, the same method, only a bit faster, and go forward. And right now, the very hesitation that has arisen between you, the two opinions that have appeared — their first effect is that the driver's foot goes to the brake, easing off a little: "Let us see now where we are going; will we reach the destination in the end or not?" This is a question-and-answer, a discussion whose answer and whose result are decisive. The discussion of Tawhid is like this. Ordinary, common people — or the idle and uncommitted — raise the question of Tawhid one way; a committed person ought to have it raised for him in another. The uncommitted person raises Tawhid like this: is there a God or is there not? And now if there is, what shall we do? If there is not, what shall we do? What effect does it have on the condition of life, what change does it create in the social order? If there were a God, what would happen to the capitalist system of some great power or superpower? Take a president who comes to power in a certain country: if he believed there is a God, how would he act? If he believed there is no God, how would he act? Does it make any difference at all? A knowledge of God and a worship of God in which accepting one side or the other leaves no difference, no effect, upon the fate of cartels and trusts and capitalisms and discriminations — that worship of God, that belief in Tawhid, is like believing in the fertility of this land we are passing by: it brings us no benefit, no effect. What is it worth that some political leader of a certain country believes in God, when for him the worship of God is merely an answer to a dry, cerebral question and nothing higher? Being a worshiper of God, being a monotheist, matters — it is effective, beneficial, necessary, vital, for a political leader, for an ordinary person, for a society, for a nation, for a whole community — only when Tawhid is raised, understood, and grasped for the sake of its effects: for the sake of what follows from it, the order it proposes, the form of life it presents. In our view this is a very important matter. We imagine that Tawhid is something we need only clarify in our heads and settle as fixed, and that once we come to life this Tawhid no longer has any effect there; and if it does have an effect, only in personal life, not in social life. "Even if I am a monotheist, I will have the same capital and the same automobile and the same company and the same factory and the same condition of relationship with the worker and the same condition of relationship with the land as I would have had if I were not a monotheist." Look at the capitalist countries of the world, at these enormous powers whose name and fame have filled East and West. Take two capitalists, two great merchants, two great factory-owners, two of these "sultans of industry," as they call themselves; suppose one believes in God and one is a materialist — what difference is there in their conduct? Now, if the one who believes in God went to church on Sunday and gave a few coppers to the monk there to forgive him some of his sins, to smooth a few kilometers of the road to paradise for him — but what effect does it have on his life? On the condition of his factory? On his relations with the worker, with the people? On how he accumulates wealth, spends it, amasses it — what effect does it have at all? This Tawhid is not much different from polytheism. The Tawhid to which Islam summons stands higher than the level of an answer to a question, a reply to an inquiry. What is it, then? Islamic Tawhid is an inspiration that reaches into governance, into social relations, into the course a society takes and the aims it pursues, into the people's duties, into the responsibilities that human beings bear before God, before one another, before society, and before the other phenomena of the world. This is Tawhid. Islamic Tawhid is that same "alif" after which come "be" and "pe" and "che," all the way to "ye." It is not that you say, "God is one and not two," and the matter is finished. "God is one and not two" means that, in the entire region of your own existence — you individually and your society as a whole — no one but God has the right to rule. "God is one and not two" means that all the wealth you possess — you and all other human beings — belongs to God; you are no more than borrowers and trustees. Who now is ready to become a monotheist? You hold the money in trust, and that is all; you are a borrower. If some money of your friend's were deposited in your hand as a trust, what would you do? You would wait for him to give the order. "Sir, give ten tomans of this money to that child, to that old man, to that stranger, to that relative; throw ten tomans of this money into such-and-such a fund; burn ten tomans of it altogether" — you wait for the handwriting of the owner of the money, do you not? Is it anything other than this? Do you regard yourself as having any right, any ownership, in this money held in trust and deposit? "Wealth is the wealth of God; He has placed it as deposits among the people." — God has entrusted wealth as a deposit into the hands of human beings. This is the corollary of Tawhid. If you hold to Tawhid, then class division and discrimination in society have no meaning — no meaning at all. A society that has a top and a bottom, an upper and a lower, is not a Tawhidi society. Tawhid says, "All of you are from Adam, and Adam is from dust" — all are the children of Adam, and Adam is from dust. Your nearness to God and your superiority lie in piety, and nothing else; whoever is more mindful of God's command stands the higher. Otherwise you get a society with a thousand grounds for discrimination — you say, "Sir, so-and-so is like this," and the reply comes, "so-and-so is among the nobility, he has a different reckoning" — a society that has nobles and non-nobles, a society in which the people's enjoyments differ severely from one another and the privileged one regards it as his right; in a society in which the servants of God are not all on one level and some are still servants of others — in this society there is no Tawhid. When Tawhid comes to a society, all the servants are placed on one level. Meaning what? Meaning that all become servants of God — as I said yesterday. The beings of the world, human and otherwise, are His subjugated servants, and in servitude to Him all are partners and equals. This I explained in detail yesterday: no one and no thing, under the heading of sonship, spousehood, or peerage, stands outside the circle of servitude to God. Within the domain of servitude, it no longer means anything for one group of servants to bind a chain around the necks of another group; that has no meaning at all. Servitude to God means freedom from servitude to other-than-God; the two simply do not go together. It has no meaning that someone should be a servant of God and also a servant of other-than-God. Servitude to God means freedom from servitude to, and from the worship of, whatever is other-than-God and whoever is other-than-God. The envoy of the armies of Islam came and entered the powerful palace of the Sasanians. A ragged-clothed Arab — an Arab whose whole attire, if you reckon it up, was perhaps not worth one of our tomans — entered the palace of the man who, on the day he was fleeing while the valiant Muslim warriors pursued him, had brought along with him a thousand singing slave-girls only, apart from other things. His minstrels and singers numbered a thousand. If this is how it is at home, what must it be on a journey — and a journey of flight at that, a journey on which he is fleeing in fear of his life? Wretch! Where are you taking singers? Take a sword with you. One fears they too were under the colonialism of the Jews! It is among the characteristics of the sinister, vile Zionist policies that they keep the people occupied with these very dilly-dallyings and song-singings and song-listenings, under various names — and it was into the court of such an enormous political power that this ragged-clothed man walked. Do you think he was afraid? Do you think he was overawed? Do you think he came with thoughts of disputation? Never. After all, when a paltry, small person presents himself before a powerful and exalted personage, his whole effort is to attach himself even a particle to that great power, to draw himself a little closer — even by flattery, by fawning, by displaying fear, by displaying servitude and submission. Do you think it was like that? Never. When he went forward and reached before the throne, it seems he even set his foot upon Yazdgird's throne, because he saw that Yazdgird would not come to take the paper from him. He had brought a paper, brought a message; others came to take it, and he said, "I will not give it to you; I must give it to him himself." And since the latter would not rise from his place to come and take the paper from this Arab, this one was forced to go forward. He went, and when he reached upon his throne he gave him the paper, so to speak. He asked, "For what have you come?" He answered in three sentences — three sentences that ought to be written in radiant letters and pounded onto a tablet over the gateway of the great palace of humanity, so that all may know what the slogan of Islam and the idea of Islam is. "Why have you come?" And he said, "We have come" — these three sentences are what concern us. "We have come to bring the people out" — A saying is related: "Li-nukhrija al-nasa min 'ibadat al-'ibadi ila 'ibadat Allah" — "We have come to bring human beings out from the servitude of [created] servants to the servitude of God Most High." What is the servitude of [created] servants? Take an example. In one of the campaigns between Iran and Rome, one of the old kings of Iran — before the Sasanians, from the Achaemenids — orders everyone to march. An old man comes and says, "Sir, my three sons are already with you in the field; let this one son stay beside me, for I am old and decrepit; allow him to remain rather than come with you." The assembly says nothing to him; they simply drive him out. Then the next day, as the troops move in columns of four — horses and soldiers behind one another — the three brothers reach the gateway and suddenly see their fourth brother cut into two pieces, one half mounted on this side of the gate and one half on that side — so that old men will no longer say, "Let our young men stay, let them not fight for the power of Darius," and will no longer throw themselves into water and fire to keep their sons home. This is the servitude of man. When human beings in a society did not even have the right to want what they want — never mind to say it; when human beings in a community had no right to take the side of justice, to be enemies of discrimination; when human beings had no right to love freedom and want it for themselves, but accepted suffocation and strangulation as the natural condition and set their own seal of approval upon it — when human beings lived in such a society, this is the highest and ugliest and bitterest of the kinds of servitude. This is the worst of the kinds of servitude. Why? Because it is fraudulent. Those who used to seize a handful of innocent human beings somewhere, shave their heads, and sell them in other lands — at least they performed an open and overt act; but to play with human beings this way, to disregard a person's thought and want and will and decision this way, to trample him — this was the deeper crime. He said, "We have come to free you from the worship of [created] servants" — that is, to free the people from the worship of you, O Yazdgird! to free others from the worship of your governors, your village-heads, your commanders, here and there — "min 'ibadat al-'ibad." Then where do we take them? They were not your servants, so what shall they now be? Loose and lawless? No — they shall be servants of God. To be a servant of God means to be free, to be a master, to move toward perfection, to use and benefit from the means of perfection to whatever extent you wish — just as it was in the Islamic society. There the people were servants of God, not servants of powers. Even at the time when the course of the Islamic society had deviated and was no longer a hundred percent Islam, it was still so. Even in those very years when the conquest of Iran was taking place, the effect of the prophetic and Quranic upbringing was still present in the people. A political ruler says from the pulpit, "If I become crooked, set me straight," and a desert Arab rises from the foot of the pulpit and says, "If you do not become straight but become crooked, with this sword we will set you straight." Did the soldiers and police fall upon his head? Did they throw him into prison as a troublemaker and do away with him? Never. He had said something true, something logical. Freedom here is not unbridled license; it is obedience to a sound human law — so that, in the spirit of man, in that order and in that society, a person carries no one's burden on his shoulders, not even the ruler's. If the ruler spoke from God, spoke by the inspiration of God, then he is an Islamic ruler and his word is accepted. But if he did not speak by divine inspiration, then his word too is rejected. A saying is related: "Li-nukhrija al-nasa min 'ibadat al-'ibad ila 'ibadat Allah, wa min diq al-dunya ila sa'at al-dunya wa al-akhirah" — The second sentence. He said, "We have come to bring the people, the servants of God, out from the limited and narrow enclosure of the world into the breadth of the world and the hereafter." The limited and narrow enclosure of the world! Consider a society whose people do not live with a sound vision. From whichever side they look, before their gaze there is nothing but the world and its worldly gains; whatever they turn to, they see only their own small, worthless animal endeavors and their base, fleeting, momentary interests. Over such a society Yazdgird ruled. It was not that everyone was content with Yazdgird; there were many who were discontented too. But the eyes of these discontented were near-sighted, the horizon of their vision narrow and small, and so they reasoned that if they showed the slightest discontent with Yazdgird, this meager, base life would be taken from them as well — these two extra mouthfuls of food, these two extra days of repose, these two extra kicks in the alley and the street would be taken away. And because they set such great store by this, because they loved this very meagerness so much, they were not ready to undertake any action for freedom, for human honor and authenticity and virtue. What was the cause? Their horizon of vision was small and limited — the narrowness of the world. But once a person became a Muslim, everything became for him a preliminary, a means. A means to what? A means of reaching a vast world — I do not mean the world after death, but the world of man's own thought, vision, and sight, which is as wide and expansive as God. Everything is a means for man, so that man may gain the pleasure of God. The life of the world, the money of the world, the comfort of the world, the affections of the world have no value and authenticity for him. It acquires value for him only A saying is related: "fi sabil Allah" — when it is in the way of God. But strip that affection, that wealth, that rank, that life, that child, that honor, that dignity of its place in the way of God and of duty, and it has no price and no value for him. In the Islamic mode of thought the world and the hereafter are sewn together, and for a Muslim the world has no end. For the person who is servant to servants and slave to deficient beings, the world is a narrow thing; for this one, it is vast. Death is a small window: look through it and on the far side lie gardens and orchards, worlds and universes and realms. So the worst that can happen is that he reaches this window and passes through it — and that does not matter; death is no problem for him. These are only glimmers and corners of Tawhid. Tawhid demands far more systematic treatment under a more definite heading, and we will give it — God willing — in the days ahead. Today I only wanted to state some generalities on this. What has been written here presents, in truth, a new vision within the domain of Tawhid — a correct vision. There are of course further aspects and angles that have not entered it, which I hope — God willing — we can set in due order in the writings of the coming days. But what has been written here is one dimension of Tawhid, and it states precisely what is intended in this domain, what the religions and the Qur'an in particular intend. And now, the verses we have selected. The repetition of Ayat al-Kursi as a slogan of Tawhid is very interesting. I suspect the reason it has been so strongly emphasized — that Ayat al-Kursi be recited again and again on various occasions — is so that this slogan of Tawhid should stay living and enduring in a person's mind, ever-alive and self-subsisting. Today's verses are from Surat al-Baqarah. They describe a scene at the Resurrection, which bears a complete and total connection to the matter of Tawhid — and in the course of the recitation this becomes entirely clear. Surat al-Baqarah, verses 165 and 166. And among mankind are some who take, besides God, rivals… Among the people are some who choose, besides God, rivals and competitors — they set up for God a partner, whether of the human kind or of other than the human kind. "Yuhibbunahum ka-hubb Allah" — they love them with the love and affection one ought to have for God. Right here the verse opens a parenthesis; it was not speaking about love, but since the love of these toward God was mentioned, it opens a parenthesis, as if — A saying is related: "Wa alladhina amanu ashaddu hubban li-Llah" — But those who have believed, the true and real believers — their love and affection toward God is far more intense than all these outward manifestations, than all the poles that draw the human heart toward themselves like amber, than all the false gods, than the god of the self and lust; and so on, take it all the way up to those gods who have seated themselves, and are seated, and are given a seat, at the head and summit of societies — than all of these, God is more beloved to the believer. A saying is related: "Wa alladhina amanu ashaddu hubban li-Llah, wa law yara alladhina zalamu idh yarawna al-'adhab…" Suddenly the discourse shifts to a scene of the Resurrection. It describes that moment when the creatures have been gathered at the Resurrection — the disbelievers, the evildoers, the servants of other-than-God, and the servants of God, and every existing phenomenon of the Resurrection, described to us or not — all are gathered. The instruments of God's punishment and the instruments of God's mercy and grace are there too, though you and I cannot yet rightly grasp or imagine the quality of these instruments; in this world we cannot rightly understand what news there is there. In general we know only this much: that the means foreseen there for torment and wretchedness are all present and prepared. The good servants of God and the bad servants of God are there. Then the tyrants and the oppressors suddenly see that all power at the Resurrection belongs to God. It is a very strange thing. Now, in this world, look: everyone has some power; everyone does something. Those who sit on high have more power, but those who sit below have power too, after all. Everyone prides himself on his own power; everyone has some measure of capacity and force within him — something does come from him, after all. Especially that tyrant, that oppressor, whose deed is greater, whose power too is greater. And even that oppressor who performed the worship of an oppressor — for he too is an oppressor, he too is a tyrant — he too, in his own imagination, enjoys some power, because he has attached himself to a higher power, like a fox that has tied its tail to a camel's tail. That is how it works in this world. But at the Resurrection, when they gather, wherever they look, whoever turns back to himself sees that there is no power, no capacity, no competence in him; power is entirely in the hand of God. "Li-man al-mulku al-yawm? Li-Llah al-wahid al-qahhar" — Whose is the sovereignty this day? It belongs to God, the One, the Subduer. He takes this scene into view: that tyrant, that oppressor, says — whatever oppressor who oppressed others, whatever oppressor who oppressed himself and had made himself the servant of that first oppressor — when they look, when they see, "Strange! Here all those words and claims and airs and pomps and palaces and lives are all nothing and void; nothing at all comes from anyone's hand." The scene there is a strange one. Picture two groups: one worshiped the other — that is, obeyed them, with unconditional obedience. On the Day of Resurrection these two groups stand face to face, at war with one another. A saying is related: "Wa law yara alladhina zalamu idh yarawna al-'adhab" — If only those who have done wrong could see — in the parenthesis we explained, we specified this wrongdoing as surrendering oneself to other-than-God. In this explanation we followed some of the old Shi'i commentators. — If only those who have done wrong by surrendering themselves to other-than-God could see, when they behold the punishment — what would they see? A saying is related: "Anna al-quwwata li-Llahi jami'an" — that all force and power are entirely from God; "wa anna Allaha shadid al-'adhab" — and that God's chastisement is severe and terrible. If they could see, what would happen? The answer is decreed. We gave it in Persian in the parenthesis: they would, without doubt, regret their own conduct. They would regret that in the world they had clutched at such a thing — that they went and made themselves the slaves of tyrants who are now, at the Resurrection, so incapable, from whose hands so little comes. Had they looked with the eye of admonition, they would have seen that in the world too these tyrants were just as incapable. "Idh tabarra'a alladhina uttubi'u min alladhina ittaba'u wa ra'awu al-'adhab" — At that time when the leaders and chiefs disavow the followers and adherents, and they behold the punishment of God. Then Yazdgird, for example, says, "O Lord! O my Sustainer! These ones whom you saw worshiping me in my time — I disavow them, do not imagine that I have any attachment to them for setting me up as your partner; they did wrong to set me as your partner, and I disavow them." Now see how the subjects of Yazdgird's day burn within: "We gave him our world and our hereafter, this scoundrel, and now at the Resurrection he disavows us." And what does this verse of the Qur'an say? "Idh tabarra'a alladhina uttubi'u min alladhina ittaba'u wa ra'awu al-'adhab" — At that time when the leaders and chiefs disavow the followers and adherents and behold the punishment of God; "wa taqatta'at bihim al-asbab" — and the ties between them are severed; "wa qala alladhina ittaba'u" — and the followers say, "law anna lana karratan fa-natabarra'a minhum kama tabarra'u minna" — "Would that we had a return to the world, so that we might disavow them just as they disavowed us" — that is, today, the Day of Resurrection. "Kadhalika yurihimu Allahu a'malahum hasaratin 'alayhim" — Thus does God show them their deeds as a cause of regret upon them; "wa ma hum bi-kharijina min al-nar" — and they will never come out of the Fire. Here is what the verse intends. Those people there are receiving blows — the blows of servitude to other-than-God, the blows of having made themselves the slaves of something other than Tawhid and against Tawhid. And the Qur'an's own word for them is "ittaba'u," the adherents, the followers.