Ep 14 — Tawhid and the Negation of Social Classes

Session 12: Tawhid and the Negation of Social Classes. Monday, 8 Mehr 1353 / 13 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Mu'minun (23:91-92). God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any god alongside Him — for then each god would have taken off with what he created, and some of them would have lorded it over others. Glory be to God, far above what they describe. We said that if Tawhid is a belief that gives rise to action and imposes commitment, then this belief inevitably lays upon our shoulders a whole series of obligations. And we said that we must understand these obligations. They are not confined to the individual life of human beings — the greater weight of them falls upon social life, upon the social order and the form of society. That is, when Tawhid enters a society, the first thing it does is to construct that society in a form that befits this belief. Only once that work is done does the turn come to ask what duties a person who professes Tawhid has as an individual. In any case, these commitments must be recognized. We have given the name "the resolution of Tawhid" to the whole set of them. Tawhid hands us a kind of resolution — it places into our hands a set of contracts and obligations. So that we may, God willing, live as believers in divine unity, we must treat these commitments as active and binding. The first of them was this: that servitude and obedience belong exclusively to God; this is the first commitment of Tawhid. We explained this point in the course of one or two — or two or three — recitations. Today we come to the second commitment that Tawhid places upon the shoulders of the believer in unity — upon the monotheistic believer, the monotheistic society, the monotheistic world. This can be designated under the heading that we have written here: Tawhid and the negation of social classes. The negation of social classes. In a brief phrase, whose details we shall present later: the monotheistic society, according to the terminology now familiar to your ears, is a classless society. It is a society in which the various groups of human beings are not separated from one another in rights and privileges. All human beings live under a single roof of rights; everyone lives and moves along a single course, with one kind of opportunity and one kind of rights. This is the society that Tawhid sets before the eye of our mind and our imagination, where social stratification is concerned. When we turn back to history, we see that class division is among the chronic afflictions of every society — not only in the backward tribal societies, not only in the lands remote from civilization, but in those very countries that are the mother and cradle of human civilization. There, in those very places, class division shows itself from between the pages of history in its ugliest face, its most repugnant form. Truly, among the great injustices of history, the great stains of shame upon it, is this very thing: class division. What does "class division" mean? It means that the human beings who live in this society are not all alike. One group is condemned to suffer deprivation, to bear hardship, to serve the other groups — and forbidden even to voice a complaint about it. Another group, by contrast, is to be well-provided and favored: the pleasure and enjoyment of life belong to them, they may make use of every privilege, and none of this is to be questioned. Take India, for example — the best case one can cite. India, as you know, is the cradle of Aryan civilization. The Aryan race was in this very India from the first moment of urban settlement, from the moment it first formed a nation and an organized community. They say the Aryan race came from the northern lands, from Siberia, and on entering split into two branches: one went toward India, the other toward Iran. And the people who reached India came to civilization sooner than those who came into Iran and settled into their lives. India is the cradle of human civilization, or one of its cradles — and there class division rages in full uproar. They held that there were four principal classes, ranked one beneath the other, with hundreds of sub-classes in between. You can search out the details in the books on the history of religions. Let those who have a taste for it search; let them reflect a little, with deliberation, on Tawhid and the Qur'an, and make the comparison. They divided the people into four classes. The first was the Brahmins, the religious and clerical men, who stood highest of all. The second was the warriors and the princes. Between these two classes there were abundant disputes and conflicts. Formerly the princes were the upper class and the clerics the second; but later, through certain factors that arose and the struggles that took place, the clerics and Brahmins managed to seize the scholarly upper rank for themselves and to push the warriors and princes down into second place. Beyond the second class came the class of farmers and laborers, the craftsmen. The two upper classes did no work for society. What did the Brahmin do, except recite a few incantations and litanies and wave his hands about? What did the chieftain and prince do, except arrange for himself a little more land, a little more wealth, a somewhat broader domain of lordship? But the craftsmen and the farmers — they performed all the work of this vast land. They were the third class. The fourth class was the common people: ordinary folk, tradesmen, those engaged in the small and manual tasks of society. And beneath these four classes there was yet another, which they said was not of the Aryan race at all. The four classes were all Aryan; the rest, they said, fell outside the Aryan race and were therefore impure — the class of untouchables. Of course, what I am now describing pertains to history — but a history that extended onward and onward and onward, right up to the twentieth century. What I have just described remained in India in full force and full authority until only a few years ago. Perhaps those who have studied the affairs of India know that the class of untouchables and the defiled was abolished by Gandhi, the late leader of India, who said: "What is this 'untouchable'?!" The former prime minister of India himself — that is, Nehru — and now his daughter is the head of state — was himself among the Brahmins, in the upper class. His father, Pandit Nehru, was among the Brahmins too. Because he was anti-religious and irreligious, though, he disliked being called "Brahmin" and "Pandit" — the special title of the Brahmins. These are not merely things belonging to ancient history. Fourteen centuries — or thirteen-and-some centuries — after the sun of Qur'anic Tawhid had risen, this class division still existed in India, in that very place that is the birthplace of human civilization. Now let me lay out that class division. They had four classes; and between them, as we said — according to the account of John Noss, who wrote a history of religions — there were tens, indeed hundreds, of subsidiary classes. And two persons from two different classes had no right to marry one another, to speak with one another, to shake hands, to sit side by side, to walk together, to be friends — wa qis 'alayhi, fa'allala wa tafa'ala (and so on and so forth). A wall of steel separated them utterly. Why should they be separated? What does the Brahmin have that I, the farmer, do not? Or that I, the ordinary tradesman, do not? What natural privilege does some great warrior enjoy that I, the ordinary commoner, do not? Ask this question, and do you know what they would answer? They would say: "Mind your own business!" Because at the very root of creation, at the very root of your coming-into-being, you were created as two groups, of two kinds. This has nothing to do with law or the convention of Zayd and 'Amr — you were created of two kinds. For when Brahma, the great god, wished to bring forth creatures and fashion the human being, he created the Brahmins from his own head, the chieftains and soldiers and princes from his own hands, the farmers from his own arms, and the laboring class from his own feet. And the impure classes are not of Brahma at all — not of that pure root, not of this race. The fourth class was created from Brahma's foot, so what right has it to consider itself the equal and peer of the Brahmin, who was created from Brahma's head? You are not at all equal in creation. One group was created from a nobler origin; they are worthy of greater respect, and their being-favored is innate — just as the deprivation of the lower classes is innate. This was the logic. Do you imagine that in such a society class division could ever be overthrown? Is such a thing possible? How could it be? Who do you imagine could abolish class division in a class-divided society? The favored class? Does the well-provided class come forward and say, "For God's sake, I have relinquished my rights"? That is a vain fancy. If class division is to be overthrown in a society, it is the deprived class that must demand its own right, must claim the prosperity that belongs to it, must protest against the excessive privileges of the upper classes. The lower class must protest. But in the society I have depicted, the lower class cannot be made to protest. Why? Because it believes it was created this way by its very essence — that this is simply the natural state, not subject to change or alteration, that nothing can be done about it. They were made this way, they were created this way. Once a person believes that nature and the divine creation within him have made him in a particular form, he can no longer expect any other form for himself, nor hope for privileges and rights that do not fit the structure of his nature. He says: "This is my lot. The threadbare carpet of one whose fortune was woven black cannot be set right. From the first we were woven in black cloth, from the first we were spun of an inferior sort; nothing more can be done." Take some black object to the edge of a stream, to the shore of an ocean, and wash it and wash it. When it is black by its very essence, when from the beginning its natural color has been black, can that color ever disappear? No — its dust and dirt will come off, but its blackness will only come out clearer; it will turn even blacker. So, as you have seen, this great injustice ran through all of history in these societies, and there was no remedy for it. Of course, reformers would appear and change people's thinking. I will not state this meaning explicitly, but it is a sign of something peculiar to the religions. Reformers would come; first they changed the thought, first they transformed the culture, first they said that this philosophy is wrong — and on the strength of that wrongness they convinced the people that this state of affairs is tyrannical. This is the correct understanding of historical transformations. It is not correct to say that the situation changed first, that the social form was transformed first and only then the philosophies and ideas — no. Reformers came first. This is our history, the history of the Orient. Those who assumed otherwise had, in our view, not read the history of the Orient — they had read the history of Europe. But this is India, this is China, this is Iran, this is Egypt. The religious reformers who arose first changed the ideas and transformed the philosophies; only once the ideas and the philosophies had changed did the ground become ready for the social condition and the corrupt social order to be transformed as well. At any rate, throughout history it was this way. You saw it: here it was India; Iran too, Egypt too, China too. Wherever you find any trace of a civilization, the situation followed this same pattern. And what does that mean? It means they argued: since human beings were created of two kinds, from two natures and two dispositions — or more — their social rights too must not be equal. They must not be alike; and anyone who said they ought to be alike had spoken wrongly. This is how they used to put it. Islam came and proclaimed that there are no "gods" — many gods are false; there is one God. Those who imagined that two gods had created two groups of human beings, with two kinds of distinctions and characteristics, have erred. There is one God, and He created the whole cosmos. The governance of the world and of its inhabitants lies entirely in the grip of His power, and He created all alike — He fashioned them all from one root, one nature, one material source. The verses of the Qur'an on this theme are abundant: O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those who were before you. The Qur'an says that all human beings are of one root, one source, one stem. They all came into the world with one kind of equipment. They are all fit for the soaring and the ascent toward infinite perfection; every one of them can become great, and great, and ever greater. This capacity exists in everyone. But take note of one exception: the beings who stand perceptibly above the level of the ordinary person — the prophets and the imams — are not included in this general statement of mine. When I said that every human being can soar and reach to infinity, I did not mean that a person can become a prophet or an imam through his own striving. That is another discussion. How a prophet becomes a prophet, or an imam an imam, is a separate matter; if we are able, we may touch on it briefly in another talk. In short: the prophets and the imams — God's blessings be upon them — enjoy greater capacities, and they have certain peculiarities that the ordinary person does not. Their number is small, they are exceptional, and our discussion here is about the individuals of human societies in general. Yet even those prophets and imams, in their root and in their material origin, are no different at all from ordinary human beings — "their father is Adam and the mother is Eve." This is an Islamic teaching, taught to human beings and set down as a matter of record in the shade of Tawhid: in the very fabric of society there is no class division. The society that Islam brings into being is not group-by-group, not class-by-class; it is impossible for some people to enjoy rights that others do not. In that society no one says that people were created from two roots, two sources, two stems, or more. No one says that one person was created from clay and another — let us suppose — from light. From the material standpoint, the origin of all is one and the same thing. Tawhid, then, is the guarantor of the negation of social classes — Tawhid in the sense of holding that there is one God, and that the creation and governance of the world all proceed from that one God. There is a point to make here, though. Social classes have not always taken the form I described in the case of India; a philosophy of that sort is not found everywhere. In certain societies and nations, the philosophy and claims put forward among the people may place everyone on a single level — yet in practice class division still exists, just as it exists in our world today. Look at the world today, especially the capitalist world, and above all the countries that have climbed highest on capitalism: there, class division is conspicuously visible. Of course, there they have never said that the laborers and the employers were created from two origins, two roots — no. They do not say that the gentleman who owns some great company or cartel and the laborer in some mine are of two stems, two roots — no. But the way these two groups treat each other, the regulations they lay down, the conduct they establish between these two kinds of human being, differs little from the practice of the people who did believe the two were created from two roots. For one group, infinite opportunities; for the larger group, zero. One group exploits the wealth of the whole world to its own benefit; the other is not even permitted to eat, alone, the fruit of its own toil. Class division in this sense too holds true, and it exists in the world today. Indeed, I want to say even more: this class division is more base and more insidious than the class division of that earlier day. Those people said outright: "Yes, we are different from one another." These people say: "We are brothers, we are all on a single scale, we are the very protectors of your rights" — yet in practice it is not so; those same distinctions exist. Sometimes, in administering the law, certain equalities are observed — So-and-so committed such-and-such a sin and was subjected to such-and-such a penalty, even though he belongs to the upper class. But look closer, and the root of the matter is something else. Again those same class divisions, again those same social distinctions, remain in full force. In reality the favors are confined to one particular group, and the majority are deprived; and the first thing they are deprived of is a sound understanding, a full and correct development. Islam has negated all of this. When I gave thought to the verses of the Qur'an on the negation of social classes — across the whole of this precious Book — I saw that there is a great deal of it, and I have written down a few here. A corner of these teachings, whose mark is manifest in the verses below, runs as follows. The Creator, the Worshipped One, and the Director of the affairs of all is God. This is an Islamic statement: the Creator of all is one, and He is God. You may ask, "What difference does it make?" It makes a great deal of difference. Suppose we hold that the Creator is two — a hypothetical case, not the scholastic debate, which I do not wish to enter into. The first effect that a philosophy of two gods produces is this: two groups come into being in society. To believe in one God, by contrast, means that the people of society are all of one rank, one group, one class — brothers standing side by side with one another. I am concerned with what this statement implies, not with the implications of that obsolete, ancient philosophy. Take note of what it means to believe that God is one. God is one and not two — that is, His servants stand on a single scale, not on two. That is one of the meanings of "God is one and not two," though not its whole meaning: the servants of God are not in two classes; they are in one class. Why? Because their God is one, their Creator is one. Did God love one group of them more when He created them? And the Jews and the Christians said: 'We are the sons of God and His beloved ones.' The Jews said: "We are the children of God and His friends." God the Exalted, in another place, throws one of their crimes in their faces. He answers them and reproaches them at once: Then why did you kill the prophets? If you are so close and kindred with God, then why did you kill His prophets? Why did you kill His chosen servants? The Jews used to say: "We are the children of God and the intimates of God; we have a special privilege." No — Islam says this is a false claim. In another place He says: Say: 'O you who are Jews, if you claim that you are the friends of God to the exclusion of [other\ people, then wish for death, if you are truthful.'] If you say that you are so close with God — then, if you are speaking the truth, wish for death! Escape this hollow life, reach the beloved God who stands on the same front as your kinsfolk; since that place is your own home, wish for death. And He says: But they will never wish for it. It is impossible for these people to wish for death. A Jew, and to wish for death?! So the Creator, the Worshipped One, and the Director of everyone's affairs is God. This matters greatly: once the Creator and the Worshipped One are one, human beings inevitably stand in one class, on one scale. All were created from a single material root and stem. We dwell on this word "material" and lay a special emphasis upon it: in their material aspect, in the aspect of the bodily structure, all human beings were created from one root and one stem. No one, in creation, is endowed with a privilege that could be the source of legal rights and prerogatives. Take note of this too: it is not that no one is endowed with any privilege at all. On the contrary, some people, owing to certain conditions, acquire a particular aptitude — and that is a privilege. One person may, by the conditions of his creation, have come into being a genius. Another may have been born of a gifted father and mother. One is less gifted, one is more powerful, one is weaker and thinner, one is more beautiful, one is uglier — so these differences exist. But these differences are not the source of a difference in rights. The one endowed with greater bodily strength is not thereby endowed with greater social rights — never! The one who came into the world in an aristocratic and influential household is not thereby endowed with greater opportunities. Never! If Islam opens a school, it opens it for all children; if it provides education and upbringing, it provides them for all children; if it gives the chance for trade and work and striving in life, it gives it to all. In an Islamic society, under the shadow of Islamic law, under an Islamic government, no one needs connections in order to study, to work, to understand things, to earn money, to hold a job — even up to the highest positions. An Islamic society is a vast field, with millions of roads laid open before millions of people. Let them go; let all make use of it; let all run in this field toward their material and spiritual aims. There is no obstacle whatever: the road lies open before everyone. This is the opposite of the non-monotheistic systems, the systems of jahiliyyah (ignorance), which pave the road for some and choke it for others with thorns and stones and obstacles. As Sa'di put it: "They tie up the stone and let the dog loose." An Islamic society is not like this. In an Islamic society everyone can reach the highest positions. Consider Bilal the Abyssinian: he reached the rank of muezzin — and do not judge that rank by the muezzin of today, who feels a sense of inferiority and, at the proper hour, often does not even come. The rank of muezzin is a great and splendid rank in Islam, a most honorable one; not everyone became a muezzin. Bilal, the black Abyssinian, of a low social origin by the standards of the jahiliyyah of that time, reaches the rank of muezzin, one of the highest of ranks. Salman the Persian, by the standards of that day, was of an even lower origin, because the Arabs held themselves superior and every other human being inferior. Salman was a Persian, after all — he was from Isfahan. A Persian, a foreigner, come from a distant land, who had perhaps learned Arabic poorly and surely did not even speak it well — yet he reaches the governorship and rule of a vast region. And many, many more of this same kind. So no one in creation is endowed with a privilege that would be the source of legal rights, even though each is endowed with certain privileges. All the privileges are at the disposal of all, and bound up with one's own continuous effort and struggle. Every position is open — except those special positions divinely appointed for the guidance and leadership of mankind, which I am not now speaking of. The whole world is His; it belongs to God, and human beings are all paupers at His threshold. All must ask from Him, all must take from Him, all must stretch out the hand of need toward Him; and here all are equal. Even Imam Sajjad — God's blessings be upon him — son of the Prophet, son of the Commander of the Faithful, son of Fatimah al-Zahra and of Husayn ibn 'Ali, peace be upon them all — even he must lament, must wail, must shed tears; and he does this very thing. A pure man not of this household must, before God, wail just the same. To earn a livelihood and manage the affairs of this world, Imam Baqir — God's blessings be upon him — and Imam Sadiq too go and wield the spade, just as an ordinary man does. Take not only Imam Sadiq as the example — the Commander of the Faithful, peace and blessings be upon him, works too; he works in the era of his power, in the era of his lordship. In the time of the Prophet, one of the greatest commanders of the Prophet's army, in most of the battles and in all of them, is the Commander of the Faithful. He goes and wields the spade, he tends the gardens, he does the irrigation, and so on. You see: if you want money, you must work; if you want knowledge, you must study; if you want a political position, you must make the necessary effort. And the road of effort lies open before all; everyone who has made the effort attains. This is the logic of Islam, and this logic runs throughout the Qur'an, in verse after verse, in abundance. Here too, again, I refer you to the Qur'an and to the text of the Qur'an. Go, open the Qur'an, look at the Qur'an with deliberation, so that we may not be included in this verse: Do they not then ponder the Qur'an, or are there locks upon [their\ hearts?] Let there be no locks upon our hearts; let us ponder the Qur'an. Now attend to these verses of the first portion, relating to Surat al-Mu'minun, verses 84 to 91: Say: 'To whom belongs the earth and whoever is in it, if you know?' O Prophet, say: the earth and whatever is in it, whose is it? — if you know. Say to the polytheists, to those polytheists who used to divide up and demarcate the spheres of influence of their own gods — say: the earth and whatever is in it, to whom does it belong? They will say: 'To God.' They will say: it is God's. The polytheists of Mecca believed in Allah, yet they regarded the idols as intercessors who would intercede for them before Allah. Say: 'Will you not then take heed?' Say: then why do you not come to your senses? Say: 'Who is the Lord of the seven heavens and the Lord of the Great Throne?' Say: who is the Director of the seven heavens and the Director of the great Throne? What is the meaning of "Throne"? Which are the seven heavens? Some of it we explained briefly in past discussions; some of it we did not — this is not the place for it. There are things to be said, and when the occasion arises, I shall present them. In any case, it is not so important here. They will say: 'To God.' They will say: those too are God's. The power and dominion of the Lord is spread over the heavens and the earth. Say: 'Will you not then be God-fearing?' Say: then why do you not have fear of this God? Why do you not order your deeds and your thoughts according to His word and His command? Say: 'In whose hand is the dominion of all things, and He grants protection while none can be protected against Him?' Say: who is it in whose hand lies the absolute dominion and sovereignty of all things? Those who have power at their disposal — the utmost of it is mastery over the outer surface of some physical thing. You own your house: you move a brick from one place to another, and your mastery reaches only that far. You pick up a piece of iron and set it down elsewhere, you weld two pieces together or pull them apart — and your mastery over a piece of iron reaches only that far. But the One who has mastery over all the atoms and parts of this being is different: the motion of its atoms is at His disposal and command. In plants, it is growth and development; in animals and human beings, it is every inner motion of their being and every one of their affairs — all of it is in the grip of His power. He is God. "Say: 'In whose hand is the dominion of all things'" — say: in whose hand is the dominion and sovereignty and power of all things — "and He grants protection" — and He grants protection, "while none can be protected against Him" — against Him, no one is granted protection; that is, were you to flee from God and take refuge with someone else against God, "none can be protected against Him" — this is its meaning. Suppose the Christians disobey God, flee into the embrace of Jesus, and Jesus grants them protection and defends them against God — such a thing is not possible. "And He grants protection" — He grants protection to every being, to every human being — "while none can be protected against Him" — against Him, in opposition to Him, no one is granted protection — "if you know." They will say: 'To God.' — if you know. Who is it that is so? "They will say: 'To God.'" They will say: the dominion of all things is in God's hand; it is God who grants protection, and against Him no one is granted protection. Say: 'Then how are you bewitched [deluded\?',nofn] Say: then how are you deceived? And notice how heavily the Qur'an leans on this — on being deceived, on staying heedless. Again and again it presses the people not to stay heedless, not to be deceived, but to open their eyes. The Qur'an is confident that if the people open their eyes, its purpose is secured — and that is exactly right. We say the same thing today. If the world today would open its eyes, this Qur'an of ours would establish a world government. But ignorance and arrogance do not allow it, and on the other side treacherous hands will not let eyes be opened. Rather, We have brought them the truth, and indeed they are liars. Rather, We have placed the truth at their disposal, and truly they are liars. We have made the matter clear to them, We have placed the truth within their reach; yet with the attitude they have adopted, in thought and in deed, they fabricate excuses — lying excuses. God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any god alongside Him. God has not taken to Himself any son — "nor is there any god alongside Him" — no worshipped being has existed beside Him and with Him. Note too that the weight of the argument rests more on this part, though the earlier verses had some bearing on the point as well. …for then each god would have taken off with what he created. Were there gods, each god would have carried off its own creature and creation in some direction — meaning division, class division among human beings, the stripping of cohesion and unity from the creation of the world and of the human being. Whoever holds that there is a god of light and a god of darkness, a human god, a god of the upper class and of the lower class, regards this creation as a patchwork of separate scraps. But in the view of Tawhid, creation is a single, cohesive piece. The human being, the animal, the mountain, the sphere, and the earth are connected and joined; and all the beings together are bound to one another, all in unity with one another. "For then each god would have taken off with what he created" — were there several gods and worshipped beings, each one would have carried its own creature and creation in some direction — …and some of them would have lorded it over others. And some of them would have gained supremacy over others. Glory be to God, far above what they describe. Pure and exalted and free is God from what they describe. The next portion is from Surat al-Baqarah, verses 21 and 22: O mankind! Behold, O people, O human beings — addressed to whom? Not to the upper and lower classes. Not to black or white human beings. Not to one group of humanity, but to all of humanity. Our emphasis is on this word: "O mankind," behold, O human beings — "worship your Lord," render worship and servitude to your Lord, who is one — "who created you," "and those who were before you," all those who came before you — "that you may be God-fearing," so that you may take up taqwa (God-consciousness). This worship, this servitude, is a cause of taqwa. Servitude to God is one of the things that brings taqwa into being — that fine, attractive state I have expounded for you, that state of immunity from sin within the soul, within the human being. So in a society where all the people are servants of God, where the society itself takes the form of servitude to God, taqwa is as abundant as you wish. There is no famine of taqwa as in our age! [He\ who made the earth a couch [a resting-place] for you.] See, everything is for all. The One who appointed for you — and "you" means whom? Human beings, all of them. "The earth a couch" — He spread out the earth, "and the sky a structure [an edifice]," a firm-built heaven, "and sent down from the sky water," rain water from the sky, "and brought forth thereby fruits as a provision for you" — by means of this rain He brought forth fruits to provide for you: not a provision for a particular class, of whose charity you might eat — no, for all. Now that it is so: …so do not set up rivals to God while you know. So do not become believers in two gods. By positing two gods, by supposing a rival and a competitor for God, do not divide human beings into two groups and three groups and ten groups — all are one group. "So do not set up rivals to God while you know" — you who know, do not suppose for God partners and competitors. Next, Surat al-Hujurat, this famous verse that is so current and so much on people's tongues, verse 13: O mankind, We created you from a male and a female. O human beings — again the address is to all — We created you from a male and a female. All of you, from a single man and a single woman — the very thing expressed in the Diwan attributed to the Commander of the Faithful, peace and blessings be upon him, whose content is this same verse: "People, with respect to their composition, are equals; their father is Adam and the mother is Eve." All are alike and equal with respect to the origin and root of creation. "And We made you into peoples and tribes that you may know one another" — the being-made into branch upon branch and tribe upon tribe is for mutual acquaintance and recognition. "Indeed, the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most God-fearing among you" — this is the decisive Islamic ruling that negates social classes: the most honored of you in the sight of God is the one with the most taqwa. That is, belonging to a certain class, a certain family, a certain lineage and clan is no cause of greater honor. And here is a subtler point still: those who possess taqwa, who stand higher than others, are not for that reason granted greater rights. People of taqwa do not receive a little more money, a few more rights, better social privileges — no, it is not so. Rather, "Indeed, the most honored of you in the sight of God" are those dearer to God. Of course, taqwa does produce certain social effects, but only up to a point: there are a few offices and posts whose condition is the possession of taqwa, and no further. "Indeed, God is All-Knowing, All-Aware." Now another passage. There is a verse in Surat al-Isra', verse 70: And We have certainly honored the children of Adam, and carried them on land and sea, and provided them with good things, and favored them above many of those We created with a marked favor. We honored the children of Adam. "And carried them on land and sea" — We bore them across the dry land and the sea and provided the means of their travel. This carrying may also, in passing, point to the relations that hold among human beings: for if people could not move from one place to another, if that capacity were missing in them, a human society might, under certain conditions, fall into fragmentation. "And provided them with good things" — We endowed them with good things. "And favored them above many of those We created with a marked favor" — We raised them above many of Our creatures. But whom? Whom did We honor? To whom did We give the good things? Whom did We favor above the rest? Human beings — not a particular class or clan. O Lord! By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, make the Qur'an our support in this world and the hereafter. By Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, O Lord! Do not withhold from us Your good through the teaching of the Qur'an.