Ep 15 — The Psychological Effects of Tawhid

Session 13: The Psychological Effects of Tawhid. delivered Tuesday, 9 Mehr 1353 / 14 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat Al 'Imran (3:172-173). Those who responded to God and the Messenger after the wound had befallen them — for those of them who did good and were mindful of God there is a great reward. Those to whom people said, 'The people have gathered against you, so fear them,' yet it only increased them in faith, and they said, 'God is sufficient for us, and how excellent a Guardian He is.' We have taken up a number of discussions about the effects that tawhid produces within the fabric of society — the shape it gives to human community and to a monotheistic community. There are still other discussions on this subject, but for various reasons we are setting aside continuing with them. The most important reason is this. Consider the effect of tawhid and of the monotheistic outlook upon the financial affairs of a tawhid-based society — one of the important planks of the tawhid "resolution." That topic requires a great deal of discussion. But to derive this matter from the verses of the Qur'an is an exacting and delicate task, and it is not a subject suited to public sessions and general gatherings. True, the Qur'an does show the monotheistic outlook on worldly wealth, in the expression and give them of the wealth of God which He has given you — give of the wealth that God has given you, wealth that is God's, to the needy and to cases of want. These points do exist. But to take the totality of the verses dealing with wealth and, in light of the monotheistic outlook, draw inferences and make use of them, is a task that belongs to more scholarly settings. It is delicate and exacting, and it is not really suitable for us to debate here. The other reason was this: we have more pressing discussions to undertake regarding the doctrinal and ideological foundations of Islam. We still have material to cover, and if life and opportunity permit, we need to bring these discussions to a conclusion by the end of the month of Ramadan, or at least to some point of completion. And clearly, if we wished to proceed in the earlier manner and discuss every chapter and every issue, we would never reach the destination we intend. That is the second reason. All in all, these were the reasons we set aside continuing with the discussion of the social effects of tawhid. Today our discussion is about tawhid, but it bears a relationship to our earliest topics — the ones we discussed concerning faith, the effects of faith, and the glad tidings given to the believers. Faith, as we said back then, means precisely that state of action-producing, commitment-creating belief. Action-producing belief — and, as we said, it must arise out of awareness; it must not be blind, bare, and divorced from righteous action. These were the discussions we conducted earlier. Belief in tawhid is a kind of faith. For the aware monotheist it is a conscious faith; it is an action-producing, commitment-engendering faith. The commitment that tawhid places upon the shoulders of the monotheist is the greatest of commitments, the heaviest of commitments, the most consequential of commitments among all Islamic and religious beliefs. For the monotheist, the commitment of tawhid is in truth summed up in the commitment to build a monotheistic world — the commitment to wipe away every trace of polytheism. These are the commitments of tawhid. Let me point out something to those with a little familiarity with Arabic. The word tawhid belongs to the taf'il form (the causative/intensive verbal pattern). Ask any seminary student what tawhid means, what its literal meaning is, and he will say: "to make one." Tawhid comes from wahdat (oneness), from the root of oneness, from the stem of unity — that is, to be one. Tawhid, in its taf'il form — as we seminary students put it — means "to make one." Tawhid means to make one, to render unified, to make into a single thing. What does that mean? It means turning a multiplicity of gods into one single God; turning a non-monotheistic society into a monotheistic one; making the polytheist's mind and the polytheist's heart into a monotheist's mind and a monotheist's heart. Tawhid — making-one — is entirely commitment: there is doing in it, there is work in it; the very word tawhid demands and entails this. And attending to this point brings a special clear-sightedness about tawhid into being within a person. So belief in tawhid is a faith of real magnitude and grandeur, a commitment of real weight, decisiveness, and determination. Whichever of the other beliefs you consider — Islamic, religious, or any of the non-Islamic social beliefs — its commitment does not match this weight and grandeur. Removing poverty from society, for instance, is a kind of commitment; so is moderating wealth in any society — a commitment a given school of thought may have undertaken. Abolishing war is a commitment a given school may have placed upon its own shoulders, and a people, by inclining toward that school and adhering to it, may have transferred that commitment to themselves. All this is correct. But take tawhid in its proper, Islamic meaning — not its superstitious, lazy-minded sense, but its true and correct one. If we conceive of tawhid as making God one, bringing into being divine governance, a divine society, divine law, a divine order — then it encompasses all those commitments I mentioned, which one school or another may hold, and beyond them, other commitments as well. See how heavy the commitment of tawhid is. So this is a faith that is conscious and accompanied by commitment — a commitment heavier than that of every other foundation of belief, religious and non-religious, and more decisive, more comprehensive, more all-embracing. This is tawhid. If tawhid carries this meaning and is a sound, real faith, then we should examine what effect this faith, this action-producing belief, will have upon the psyche of the believer — and what it ought to be. This is a separate question. Take someone who has come to believe in tawhid: that God is one in every corner and nook and in the various domains of human life, just as God is one in every corner of the world of creation. When a person attains this belief, what effects come into being in their spirit? The benefit of this discussion is twofold. First, we become a little more acquainted with tawhid — we come to understand what kind of spiritual and psychological instruction it carries. If someone later draws a numbing, sedative inference from tawhid, we can say: that is wrong; the effect of tawhid is not what you say, but what I say. So that is the first benefit: we come to know tawhid. The second is that we come to know ourselves — whether we are monotheists or not. It is a touchstone for recognizing the substance of tawhid within our own hearts. How am I to know that I am a monotheist? How am I to know that this faith has taken effect and penetrated my spirit, the depths of my being? Once I have learned what tawhid's psychological effect is like — what definite effects this medicine produces in a person's being — I can put it to the test. I look and see whether these effects are present or absent, and from that I know whether I took the medicine correctly, or took the wrong one — whether they gave me the genuine article or a counterfeit. If I see that those intended effects do not exist in me, I will understand that the bottle of medicine they gave us was counterfeit, not the genuine one — for if it had been genuine, it would have produced other effects. As for the psychological effects of tawhid, that discussion would drag on and grow long, so I want to finish here today, so that tomorrow, God willing, we may turn to the discussion of prophethood. The psychological effect of tawhid can be summed up in a few sentences. One effect the monotheist draws from tawhid is a breadth of horizon in his vision. He is free of narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness. He does not say, "I was defeated in this arena," or "our front retreated in this matter and the affair ended to our loss." He is not so shortsighted, because he knows that monotheistic thought has a domain as long as the lifespan of mankind. Measured against the lifespan of humanity, ten years, twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years are no more than a single instant, a single minute. To put it another way: the monotheist's horizon does not come to a halt at material concerns and base, paltry needs. When he looks before himself, alongside his material needs he sees dozens of needs, hundreds of needs, among the most immense and most precious of human needs. His whole mind and thought and attention are not arrested at base, petty needs. He has not imprisoned himself within them — the way people who are inwardly material, even if outwardly divine, outwardly spiritual, have incarcerated themselves. When the monotheist looks, he sees the future before him as infinitely vast. As I mentioned on one of the past days, he does not regard the world as having an end, because he sees the end of this world as connected to the Hereafter. He regards the Hereafter and this world as the two ends of a single scroll. He does not regard death as the wall of life, nor suppose it to be the end of this road; rather he regards it as an opening and a passage and a thoroughfare toward a vaster world. These are the properties of tawhid. A non-monotheist, however self-sacrificing, however captivated by noble and humane ideals, finds that everything for him comes to an end at the moment of death. For the monotheist, though, death is the beginning of a vaster life and a more interesting, more pleasing environment. A materialist, even a very self-sacrificing one, is prepared to cast himself into that place, into that zone, which in his view is nothingness and non-existence. But of a monotheist — like a moth, like a candle — nothing is expected except self-immolation, except not giving a thought to his own personal interests. And even if he were not so self-sacrificing, even if he did not rise to it, even if he did not want to sacrifice himself so much, still, for him, falling into that zone which the materialist saw as non-existence is easier — because he does not see that place as non-existence. He knows that place too as another environment, another station, another zone of this vast zone of human life. Among the effects of tawhid upon the spirit of a monotheist is this: it dries up the root of fear within him — and this is very important. In several places the Qur'an addresses the believers with: "…so do not fear them, but fear Me…" — dry up the root of fearing others within your heart, and fear Me. And whoever fears God fears no one else. In whoever was a monotheist, whoever had belief in the power of the Lord, fear vanishes. And when I look, when I reflect, when I calculate, I see that it is fear — dread and terror — that strips this world and the Hereafter from those who possess them. Fear of poverty causes a person not to give in charity. Fear of being beset by hardships causes a person to submit to crimes and catastrophes and humiliations and degradations. Fear of not being able to live in this world for even two more days — and what a life! what a kind of life! — fear of losing this very base life, which is not even certain to last two days or three. No official deed was issued guaranteeing that you will be alive until such-and-such a year, until such-and-such a date. Fear of losing such a worthless life causes a person to put an end to other lives, to embitter or destroy social life. Greed traces back to fear, and fears are the root of the miseries in human lives. Look across the whole of history and you will see what drove the supporters of truth into the minority, there, where they found themselves in the minority. What drove a people who had recognized the truth not to follow it, there, where truth-recognizing people did not follow the truth. What drove a people to stain themselves with great crimes, there, where you see a people staining themselves with crimes. Most often, when a person pursues, investigates, and studies, he finds that the source of all of this is fear. Fear! As all of you know, the course of the Islamic society fell into deviation and decline. True Islam was a gift God had given the Muslims free of charge — the second generation received it at no cost, because the sacrifices had been made for the first generation. This gift was placed at their disposal for nothing. What, then, made them unable to keep it, to preserve it? What but fear? Among the people around the Commander of the Faithful, within range of that great man's teachings and instruction, who did not know Mu'awiya? In the Hijaz, who did not know Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan? Who did not know Yazid ibn Mu'awiya? Who did not know 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan? The dynasty of the Umayyads — who did not know them, had not tested them, had no historical experience of them, had not felt the word of the Qur'an, the word of the Prophet, and the condemnatory verdict of history upon them? Everyone knew. What but fear? Why did they go and submit, why did they collaborate, why did they become hirelings, and why, in their station of hireling-service, did they also flatter and fawn? Nothing but fear. And this fear had taken hold of them all, from the lowest classes of the people up to the elite, up to the famous figures, up to those in whom the people had placed their hopes. 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar was a symbol of incapacity, weakness of soul, and refusal to accept the truth. His refusal was paired with incapacity — as I have said; otherwise 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr too refused the truth. On the whole, when you look, you find the figure of 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr — that executioner-henchman opposed to 'Ali — more acceptable than a man like 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar. 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar is a man who, after 'Uthman was killed, did not pledge allegiance to the Commander of the Faithful. Why not? He said: "The matter is not clear to me." He exercised caution and did not pledge allegiance to 'Ali, peace be upon him. Out of utmost caution for the sake of religion, he withheld his allegiance from the Commander of the Faithful. For by his own reckoning, in his own imagination, he saw that not all the Muslims agreed on this question. But if you had no personal interest, if you were not gripped by ulterior motives and diseases of the heart, consider this sentence you had heard from the Commander of the Faithful: "Do not feel desolate on the path of guidance because of the fewness of those upon it". Had its very import — from the Prophet, from the Noble Qur'an — not sunk into your flesh, become a part of you? Had you not known that on the path of God, the right path, the path of guidance, whether the travelers be few or many, a person must not change his path or alter his resolve, but must ask only whether the path of guidance exists or not? There is an important Islamic principle at work in life: paying no attention to what others say, not heeding how the ignorance-enslaved or motive-driven majorities act. Because this principle was not in his hand, not operative in him, he withdrew from the Commander of the Faithful and, out of caution, did not pledge allegiance. Years passed after this episode. The Commander of the Faithful — God's blessings be upon him — was martyred, and Mu'awiya ruled for years. By then this same 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar had come to know Mu'awiya thoroughly and from close up; and if it had not been clear to him that day, it had become clear to him afterward. Then the era of Yazid — those three disgraceful years in the history of Islam — passed too; Marwan ibn al-Hakam, Yazid's successor and the father of 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, spent his own brief period of rule; then 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan came to power. Through all this time 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar had been in Medina, in the heart of affairs, in the very midst of the events. He had not been uninformed; he had not been unaware of what had befallen the Islamic society; the men who ran it had not remained unknown to him; he had come to know the Umayyads well. Even so, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi, the notorious executioner-henchman of the Umayyads, came on behalf of 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan to conquer Mecca, which was in the possession of 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr. 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr was resisting there, fighting fiercely against the forces of 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan that had come from Syria. The Umayyads saw that they had to bring this disturbance to an end. Hajjaj ibn Yusuf was the most ruthless executioner of them all, so they sent him. He came, set up catapults atop the mountains surrounding Mecca, and rained stones upon the House of God; he killed a great number of the people; then they killed 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr too, and crucified his slain body. Hajjaj ibn Yusuf was sitting in his tent, occupied with writing a letter that reported the conquest to Syria, the center of the caliphate. 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar was among the people of Mecca. Group after group, the people came and pledged allegiance to Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. It was not that these people did not know Hajjaj — they knew him. It was not that they thought well of his Islam, his piety, and his competence — everyone knew what a vile, base creature Hajjaj was, and on behalf of what even baser and viler creature he was acting here. They knew these things too. But because he was the conqueror, because the power was in his hands, because if the people did not pledge allegiance to him he would set the sword loose upon them — out of fear, group after group, they came and pledged allegiance to Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar, in the midst of thousands of other people, came near the tents of Hajjaj, which had been pitched outside the city. He said, "Tell him 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar has come" — imagining that they would honor him, receive him with open arms, and warmly welcome him. He did not know that power, by its very nature, is heedlessness and shamelessness. He imagined that because he had once helped Mu'awiya and had given no help to the household of the Prophet, they would now appreciate his worth. He did not know that these people eat the salt and then break the saltcellar. He came and said, "I am 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar." They told Hajjaj, "It is 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar." He said, "Tell him to come in." He came in. Hajjaj did not stir for him, did not pay him respect, did not even lift his head from the paper to look at him and welcome him. He said, "Commander, give me your hand so that I may pledge allegiance to you." Who is saying this? 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar. To whom? To Hajjaj. The same 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar who would not say to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, "Give me your hand so that I may pledge allegiance," who exercised caution there — caution in religion — now says to Hajjaj, "Commander, give me your hand so that I may pledge allegiance to you." What did Hajjaj say in reply? "My hand is occupied with writing the letter; pledge allegiance to my foot." He stretched out his foot and said, "Pledge allegiance to my foot." And the man pledged allegiance to the foot of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. A base and abject person who, for the sake of two more days of living — and a living so wretched at that, a living that holds neither the sweetness of this world nor the sweetness of the Hereafter, a living that amounts to nothing but the making-forbidden of a few kilos of food, a living that brings a person no closer to God but only closer to Satan — for the sake of two more days of living of this sort, a man should come and pledge allegiance to Hajjaj, and to the foot of Hajjaj? What is its source? Its source is nothing but fear. This is why the narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt — peace and blessings be upon them — and the supplications handed down to us give such special attention to these matters of the spirit, to what pertains to the human soul. Nowhere is this truer than in the month of Ramadan. So I press this recommendation on everyone as hard as I can: recite the supplications; attend to the supplications transmitted from the Imams. Consider one supplication of Imam al-Sajjad — God's blessings be upon him — where he says: "O God, grant me long life" (Allahumma 'ammirni). I am explaining this one sentence of supplication for you for two reasons. First, so that those who recite supplications and love them may understand why supplication has been so emphasized — so that they will not take it lightly, will not recite it thoughtlessly and ignorantly, but recite it with a little attention. Second, so that those who set themselves against supplication may know what they are opposing. We have no "supplication" in the sense of an anti-supplication; so let those who reject supplication outright understand what teachings lie hidden within it. "O God, grant me life — long life — so long as my life is expended in obedience to You" (Allahumma 'ammirni ma kana 'umri bidhlatan fi ta'atik): grant me life, grant me living — but I do not want it unconditionally. I do not want a long life, a hundred years, a hundred-and-twenty years, spent in vain. "…so long as my life is freely poured out in obedience to You" — so long as it is poured out without stint on the path of Your obedience, in servitude to You, grant me life. The long life I want is the one that lengthens my servitude to You. The long life I want is the one expended in work, in action. I do not want a long life that is purposeless and idle. "O God, grant me life so long as my life is expended in obedience to You; and when…" — fa-idha kana 'umri marta'an li-l-shaytan fa-qbidni ilayk — "O God, whenever You see that my life has become a pasture-ground for Satan…" And by Satan — hold firmly in mind the meaning we gave, the meaning the speaking Qur'an gives: the forces that engender evil, anyone who drags a person and all humanity toward error, toward sin, toward corruption. That is what Satan means. "…whenever You see that my life has become the pasture-ground of satans, a means by which they make use of me; whenever You see that my life is the substance and the ground the fronts opposed to God profit from — using me as propaganda, exploiting my ignorance, wielding me as a weapon and an instrument, feeding on my conceit and my arrogance; whenever You see that I have become a means for the triumph of the wicked and the defeat of the good and virtuous; whenever You see that in practice — even without my own knowing — I have become a slave of Satan, a pasture-ground of Satan — fa-qbidni ilayk — then take me unto Yourself. I do not want this life." This is the supplication. I implore you by God: a person who says these words with his spirit, who says these words truthfully, who says these words out of attention to their meaning — what state does he come to find in his life? This is one supplication. It is how the Imams of guidance — peace and blessings be upon them — instruct us: those lives that are a means by which the enemies of God attain their desires — death is far better than those lives. Then why fear death, you wretch! 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar! Why? Let yourself not stay alive. What would Hajjaj have done to you? As for your life — about which you did not even know whether you would be alive ten minutes after that shameful pledge of allegiance, or whether you would be alive ten years, and if alive, what kind of alive — let Hajjaj put an end to that life; let him put an end to it. Did you not see with what wretchedness 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas departed from this world? The 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas who left 'Ali alone in one place, who left al-Hasan alone in one place, who left al-Husayn alone in one place — from his fate, O 'Abdullah — 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar — you should have taken a lesson. 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas did not live very long. His heart was full of blood. He had seated his son — 'Ali ibn 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas — beside himself and was pouring out his sorrows to him. They had slaughtered a cow, or apparently a calf, whose liver was diseased — torn to pieces — and he showed it to his son and said: "Look, your father's liver is more torn to pieces than the liver of this sheep or cow or calf that we slaughtered. I have been utterly worn down by this life." And what had happened, after all? That very city of Mecca, which had been 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas's refuge from the wrath of the Commander of the Faithful and his place of comfort in the face of the responsibility that the Commander of the Faithful would assign to him — that same city of Mecca had become the hell of 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas. I say that 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas does not have a sound tawhid; 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar does not have a sound tawhid. Had they been monotheists — A monotheist — whether Indian sword be set upon his head, or showers of gold be poured before his feet — has neither hope nor dread of anyone: this and this alone is the meaning of tawhid. He speaks truly — he speaks truly. The most important psychological effect of tawhid on the human spirit is this: on the path of God, on the path of duty, on the path of what he discerns to be the purpose of his own existence, he does not dread the enemies of that path. I do not say he should feel no nervous weakness, that his heart should never once feel a tremor of anxiety — no; but he should have no active fear, no active dread. The fear and dread that would hold him back from treading the path of God — that should not exist within his being. These fears, these dreads, these terrors that obstruct virtue and feed the growth of unmanliness, of crimes and catastrophes — these fears and dreads he should cast aside. The passage we take up today has two parts: one from Surat Al 'Imran, which we recite first, and then a few verses from Surat al-Ra'd. Surat Al 'Imran, verse 172: Those who responded to God and the Messenger after the wound had befallen them — for those of them who did good and were mindful of God there is a great reward. The lead-up to this verse is long, and even the portion I have chosen runs to two or three verses. So that you can catch the thread of the argument, I will read the two or three verses before it. "Those who responded to God and the Messenger" — those who gave answer to God and the Prophet. What does "gave answer" mean? It means they accepted the call of the Prophet and the divine call — accepted it actively. Not merely to say in their hearts, "Well, sir, we accept what you say" — no; they set out after the Prophet of God. And when? In the most severe and difficult of circumstances they accepted the call of God and the Prophet. And when was that? It was after they had been wounded on the battlefield. "After the wound had befallen them" — min ba'di ma asabahum al-qarh — after the qarh, the wound, had reached them. "For those of them who did good and were mindful of God there is a great reward" — for those who did good and adopted godfearing piety, those who answered the call of God, a great reward, an immense recompense, is in store. This verse relates to the Battle of Uhud. You know that at the Battle of Uhud a group had fled, while the Prophet of God was calling out to them. Some were afraid and did not come; some, even though they were wounded, came. The Commander of the Faithful sustained seventy-one wounds that day — seventy-one, perhaps fewer, perhaps more; I do not exactly recall right now — but he sustained many wounds, and a number of the other companions of the Prophet did as well, though somewhat fewer. Some responded and accepted the call of God and the Messenger; some did not accept, and fled instead. This verse declares the recompense and reward of that group who did not flee but accepted and responded. Those to whom people said… Alladhina qala lahum al-nasu — pay attention to the general aspects of these verses. Let us not imprison ourselves in the Battle of Uhud; let us not confine the Qur'anic ideas to the events of early Islam and to what occasioned the revelation of these verses. What matters to us is the idea of the verse — what does the verse mean to say? This is also a point in the Qur'an that I have perhaps noted on other occasions: sometimes, in the course of a story, a single sentence connected to that story states a general Islamic principle. Pay attention to this. Take, for example, the story of the Prophet Noah, at the point where Noah the Prophet has boarded the ark. He has brought his family and household aboard, along with the believers who followed him and stood on his front — while the rest of the creatures were left exposed to the divine fury of the Flood. A flood is coming, the water is welling up, the death-dealing waves are drowning people on all sides. And there is a son of Noah who is not among the believers in him, who has not come to board. This is an ordinary story being told, but one full of subtleties and allusions. Noah the Prophet — an old man, white-bearded, very advanced in years — turns to his young son, his beloved son, and says to him: "Come, board; come, board; you will drown." The son says: "No indeed, I will not board, nor will I drown; I will go up the mountain, and I have no need of you either." In the midst of this very exchange, a wave rises between them as a barrier; the father no longer sees the son, and the son drowns. The matter comes to its end. Noah's heart, from its human side, is somewhat troubled — after all, his son perished in this event. He lays his trouble before the Lord of the worlds, saying: "My Lord, You had promised that You would save my family, that You would save my household. Would that my son too, who was of my household, had been saved." Then an address comes from the Lord of the worlds: Indeed he is not of your family; indeed it is an unrighteous deed. "Innahu laysa min ahlika" — he is not of your family; "innahu 'amalun ghayru salih" — he is an unrighteous deed. "…an unrighteous deed" — that act is unrighteous. We do not have to dwell on the whole story — though of course I am now leaning on a single word of it; there are abundant points to lean on elsewhere in these stories and in the story of Noah — but "innahu laysa min ahlika" presents to us and teaches us a general Islamic principle. It says: two brothers who do not think alike are strangers to one another, and two strangers who think alike are brothers to one another. If father and son do not think alike — one a believer in God, the other a denier of God; one on the front of God, the other on the front of Satan — then father and son have no kinship or relation with one another; they are not of one family. Kinship by lineage and by marriage, kinship related to blood, is, from the standpoint of Islam, of the second degree; kinship of thought is of the first degree. See — this is an Islamic principle. Look into the narrations, too, and you find this principle indicated again and again. I have seen one from the Imam, peace be upon him, who says: "The believer is the brother of the believer through his father and his mother" (al-mu'minu akhu al-mu'mini li-abihi wa-ummih) — a brother through father and mother. You may be as distant from your full brother, your brother through the same father and mother, as the East is from the West; yet with a believer on the other side of the world you are a brother through father and mother — with one who thinks like you, who stands on your front, whose faith matches your faith. This is an Islamic principle. In these Qur'anic accounts, watch for such points; see what the passage means to say — what principle, what idea, what historical reality, one perhaps repeated in a hundred other places, it is stating. Now consider this verse. Those to whom people said… "Alladhina qala lahum al-nasu" — these recipients of our reward and recompense are the ones to whom "the people" spoke; a group said something to them. What did they say? "Inna al-nasa qad jama'u lakum fa-khshawhum" — "The creatures have gathered against you, they have plotted, they have joined hands, they want to wipe you out; so fear them." This is what the well-wishers and the prudence-minded said to this group of believers. And the believer whose reward and recompense we mentioned in the previous verse is the kind who, when the well-wishers and the prudence-minded said such a thing, answered — what did they say? "Fa-zadahum imanan" — first, this matter only increased their faith. That the enemy's plot should increase the believer's faith is most remarkable. Their faith increased first; then what did they say? "Wa-qalu hasbuna Allahu wa-ni'ma al-wakil" — "God is enough for us, and how excellent a Guardian is God." He is a good one to whom a person can entrust his affair. "Hasbuna Allahu wa-ni'ma al-wakil" — God is enough for us. What does that mean? It carries several meanings, all of them correct. God is enough for us, and He aids us with His own help. God is enough for us — He has set, and sets, the forces of nature in the direction of our course, which is the direction of the truth. God is enough for us — meaning that even if we do not attain the sweetness of this world, may God be pleased with us. Each of these meanings, and the others you may take from "hasbuna Allahu wa-ni'ma al-wakil," is correct. "Fa-zadahum imanan" — when it was said to them, "fa-khshawhum," "fear the people, fear the enemies," their faith increased, "wa-qalu" — and they said: "hasbuna Allahu wa-ni'ma al-wakil" — God is enough for us, and He is the best guardian and support. So they returned with a blessing from God and bounty; no evil touched them, and they followed the good pleasure of God; and God is the possessor of great bounty. "Fa-nqalabu bi-ni'matin mina Allahi wa-fadlin lam yamsashum su'" — "lam yamsashum su'," no evil touched them; they returned with a blessing from God and bounty. First, these very people — their abode became the blessing of God, no evil or harm touched them, and they became happy and glad. How did they become happy and glad? The Qur'an does not say what became of them, because it makes no difference: however it came about, whether they were martyred on that battlefield or returned safe and free to their homes, made their way back to the city of Medina — it is all one ('ala al-sawa'). If they returned to their home and life, they came as victors, and no distress touched them — because the wound of the battlefield, in the warm environment of family and with contentment from triumph, heals quickly. "Fa-nqalabu bi-ni'matin mina Allahi wa-fadl" — and if they fell upon the dust of the battlefield and were martyred, then here all the more — "fa-nqalabu bi-ni'matin mina Allahi wa-fadl" — there they returned toward the blessing of God: blessing without decline, bounty without end, a bounty in which there is no evil whatsoever, an ease in which there is not the least trace of distress. "Lam yamsashum su'" — no evil touched them. "Innama dhalikum al-shaytanu yukhawwifu awliya'ah" — remember this verse and keep it always in mind. "Innama dhalikum al-shaytanu yukhawwifu awliya'ah" — these speakers are nothing but Satan. It is Satan who frightens his own friends. He says: "Sir, they have laid a plot for you, they have hatched a conspiracy against you, the enemies have gathered an army, the hypocrites have joined hands with the Quraysh unbelievers, the hypocrite has fastened a sword beneath his cloak, he is about to strike you, he is about to kill you, he is about to do such-and-such." The one who frightens you — that is Satan. It is only Satan who frightens his friends; so do not fear them, but fear Me, if you are believers. "Innama dhalikum al-shaytan" — the one who frightens you of the enemy of God is Satan, and frighten you he does. But what of you? Do you take fright at Satan's word? That depends on who you are. He succeeds only in frightening his own friends. Were you his friend, you would be afraid; were you not, you would not. See how short the verse is, and at the same time how pithy and full of meaning. "Innama dhalikum al-shaytan" — indeed this is Satan; "yukhawwifu awliya'ah" — who frightens his friends; "fa-la takhafuhum" — so do not fear them; "wa-khafun" — but fear Me, observe My command, fear My chastisement and My wrath; "in kuntum mu'minin" — if you are believers. The next verse: And let not those who race toward unbelief grieve you; they will not harm God in the least. God wants to assign them no portion in the Hereafter, and for them is a great chastisement. "Wa-la yahzunka alladhina yusari'una fi al-kufri" — let them not grieve you, O Prophet — those who rush headlong down the valley of unbelief — "innahum lan yadurru Allaha shay'a" — they will not harm God in the least. "Yuridu Allahu alla yaj'ala lahum hazzan fi al-akhirati wa-lahum 'adhabun 'azim" — for them is a great chastisement; God wills that they have no portion on the Day of Resurrection. These two or three verses are the ones that held the question of the fear of God and the fear of Satan. Peace be upon you, and the mercy of God and His blessings.