Ep 12 — Exclusive Worship and Obedience of God

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