Ep 21 — The Opposing Groups

Session 19: The Opposing Groups. delivered Monday, 15 Mehr 1353 / 20 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-An'am (6:112-113). And thus We have appointed for every prophet an enemy — devils from among mankind and the jinn, inspiring one another with embellished speech in delusion. Had your Lord willed, they would not have done it; so leave them and what they fabricate. And [it is] so that the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter may incline toward it, and be pleased with it, and so that they may commit what they are committing. (We have started a little late today — by some ten minutes — and on the other hand we intend, God willing, to keep our time disciplined; that is, to finish in an hour and a half. So we will not recite the rest of the verses.) We said that prophethood is a social resurrection, and we said that one of the principles of this resurrection consists of the negation of social classes — meaning that in the environment which is the making and the handiwork of the Prophet of God, there does not exist, on one side, a class of the weak and the enslaved and the destitute and the deprived, and on the other side, a class of the powerful and the bullies and the privileged. As we know from our own Islam — and indeed all the heavenly religions are essentially of the same character — Islam has never posited, never even imagined, a situation in which one person, because he is weak, because he is powerless, would be unable to obtain his own rightful due. Such a supposition has no place among the suppositions of an Islamic government and of a monotheistic, divine order. This is why He says: No community will be sanctified in which the weak one cannot take his right without stammering — meaning this: suppose in some society you see that a human being is weak — that is, he is not at the head of some power, he does not hold one of the political and social posts — and such a person, an ordinary human being, cannot take his right without a stammer of the tongue. Then know that such a society is not a saved, successful, victorious society. And even if the weak one took his right but took it with a stammer of the tongue — went and stood there, and his tongue stuck a little, and his face flushed a little — this too is of no use. Does a person who is a child of his own house, a child of this household, when he goes toward the kitchen and toward the food and the storehouse and the source of food to take his own food — which is a right he has assumed for himself — feel any shame, any sense of humiliation, any sense of being a burden? Certainly not. In a society shaped the way Islam teaches and instructs us, and the way it wishes us actually to act, the situation is like this: all are children of one environment and members of one body, without any difference or distinction whatsoever. This means that the Islamic ruler — even one like the Commander of the Faithful (may God's blessings be upon him) — has, in the Islamic society, exactly as much right and exactly the same rights as any one of the individuals of the common people, and only that much right. In the Islamic society, the very highest authorities cannot use force, bullying, or even harsh speech against an ordinary human being. Consider how far this went, even in a period when the course of the Islamic society had changed and, according to our belief, had drifted away from the axis of divine and authentic vicegerency — that is, away from the axis of the imamate of the Commander of the Faithful (may God's blessings and peace be upon him). Even in that very period, a governor, a powerful man, ruled some region far from the Islamic capital; his son — not he himself — struck a single lash against an Arab. At that, a high-spirited Arab gets up and traverses this long road, crosses this distance, comes to Medina to seek justice and to file his complaint. The caliph writes to the governor that both the governor and his son must come; he does not say "Send your son alone" so that the governor might excuse himself in reply and say "I am unwell at the moment" — no, the governor himself must come too. The governor and his son both come. When the caliph asks them why he harmed this Arab and struck him with a whip, the son of the governor says: "O Commander of the Faithful, O caliph! Tell him to bring a witness." He turned and said: "His witness is precisely this — that with such hardship he rose up from Egypt and came all the way to Medina. In the desert, where would he bring a witness from? Should he find four upright witnesses to attest that you struck him in the desert?! If you struck him in the lonely desert, what is he to do? Had you not struck him, this motive would not have arisen in him to rise up all that distance from Egypt and come on foot to Medina to complain to me. Lay him down." They stretched the governor's son out in the mosque and began to flog him. When the son rose up, [the caliph] said, "Lay the father down too." The clamor and outcry of 'Amr ibn al-'As went up — the governor was 'Amr ibn al-'As — "Me, why? You say my son struck him; why are you striking me?" He said: "For the reason that your son struck him relying on you, struck him relying on your power. Had you not been his father, had you not held power, had you not been his protector and supporter, he would have struck his own head against a stone before striking this Arab in the desert. Lay him down." For whose time was this? This was for the time when Islam had separated from the God-willed course. It was for the time when our Commander of the Faithful was not in office; those who were in office — we do not grant them the right of vicegerency — and yet, even so, it was like this. Well, this is the Islamic society. The things I have said, I said them with a purpose: I wished that, from the discussion we are having today, I should not draw the conclusion myself — rather that you yourselves should draw it. What I am about to say and will say in this discussion, you yourselves, before I say it, should arrive at the very same conclusion. This is the society that Islam wants — and all the monotheistic religions of the world want the same — a society in which there is no force, no bullying, no accumulation of wealth alongside the deprivations and destitution of the destitute classes. This very school and this very religion say: I never saw a heaped-up fortune except that beside it I saw a right that had been wasted. If wealth were to be distributed per capita, this much would not reach Mr. Rockefeller. The reason you see this much has reached him is that he has piled his own share together with the share of ten million other human beings, twenty million other human beings, and it has become this much. A ten-millionth is his, a hundred-thousandth is his. I never saw a heaped-up fortune except that beside it I saw a right that had been wasted. The Islamic society, the ideal society from the standpoint of the logic of the monotheistic religions, is such a society: in it there is no force, in it there is no bully, no one uses force; and if anyone should wish to use force, they will not let him. If anyone should wish to spread class difference in a society built upon the Islamic order, they will not let him do so. Why? Because the order was an order that the Prophet had built. You have seen these skilled tailors — when they fashion a garment, you see that this garment has become torn and tattered, all the parts of the garment have become full of holes; yet its seams have not come undone, the cut of the garment has not been lost. The Islamic society they had punctured with holes again and again, yet the cut of the society had not been lost. Its tailor is the Prophet; its architect and its craftsman is the capable hand of the Messenger of God. The God-willed, God-made, Prophet-made order is an order of this kind. In it there is no force, no bullying, no exploitation, no despotism, no absolute rule of one human being or a group of human beings over other human beings. In such a society — which God wants and says human beings must be gathered together in this form — there is no ignorance, no unawareness, no superstition-worship. In this community the people are obliged, are bound, all to think. It is necessary for all to find their own path; and when they have found it, it is necessary that they tread that path. In that society all are duty-bound to defend the rights of the weak and the deprived and the oppressed. In that society no one has the right to say, "My own interests are enough for me, my own troubles are enough for me, my own affairs are enough for me; I have no time to attend to others' affairs" — for the reason that all are together, all are parts and members of one body and the limbs of one body. Can they speak in this way? In that society there is no laziness; in that society there is no division and discord; in that society there is no blind submission and moving sightlessly after Zayd and 'Amr and Bakr. Such a society the Prophet wishes to build. Pay careful attention, keep in mind the characteristics of that society which the Prophet wishes to build with his powerful hand and with the teaching and inspiration of God's revelation. This society — its great characteristics, its main outlines — are: the existence of knowledge and awareness, the existence of justice and equity, a single class, the negation of social classes, the negation of exploitation, the negation of the accumulation of wealth, the negation of despotism and absolute rule, the negation of taking the side of falsehood, and the obligation and compulsion of taking the side of right and truth. These are the features of this society. The main point of my words is here, and it connects to today's discussion. If a prophet should come into an ignorant society and also state his own message, also declare his own aim, and say what kind of society and world he wants to build, say how he wants to arrange the social order — if a prophet should speak these words, who will struggle against him in this ignorant community? I said what kind of society the Prophet wants to build. It is very clear who will oppose and struggle against the Prophet. The first people to struggle against the Prophet are those who live off class difference. They are alive for the reason that they are able to milk a group of people, able to wrongfully use the energies of a group of innocent human beings. If it should come to pass that they were placed in the same rank, in the same class, as those human beings, then off whom would they live? After this, whom would they milk? These become opponents. Another group who will oppose the call of this prophet and the establishment of such a society and order are the wealth-hoarders, the wealth-amassers. They are eager to pull money out of this one's pocket, that one's pocket, out of the knotted handkerchief of some deprived old woman, from the bottom of the cash-box of some grocer, from the meager till of some street vendor, and to pour it into their own enormous, infinite purses. They are eager — by founding usurious institutions, by establishing a system of usury and taking interest on money — to turn every business that exists, and all the trades, and all economic activities, in the end to their own profit. Is it not so? Sir, what is your occupation? You are a tradesman in this bazaar; whatever business you do — if you tell me, so many percent of it is for you, so many percent of it is for such-and-such bank and so-and-so and so-and-so. See how much credit you have used, see how much interest you are paying, and then see for whom you are running. When the system was a usurious system, when it came to pass that in a society everyone pays interest and a group take interest and devour it, then consequently all the businesses are to the profit of the usurious institutions. If, in such a society — where wealth and wealth-hoarding are the noble, legitimate occupation of a group of human beings who consume and lord it over others — a prophet should come, a reformer should come, and say, "Sir, wealth-hoarding is forbidden!" — well, it is obvious that this one will oppose that prophet; it is quite natural. So this too is one group. One group are the wealth-hoarders who will struggle against this prophet. One group are the despotic rulers who will struggle against this prophetic call and divine mission — for the reason that as soon as there is no god but God enters a society in its true form, its meaning is that Pharaoh has risen up out of that society, has departed; either he has gone, or he has become one of the ordinary individuals of the people. This is the meaning of there is no god but God, after all. If there is no god but God should come to be, in its true form, the source of the building of a society, then in that society which is formed on the basis of there is no god but God, at the apex of its pyramid stands God, not Pharaoh. God is placed there, not Pharaoh and Haman, not Nimrod, not Shaddad, not Mu'awiyah. So it is very clear that Pharaoh and Nimrod and the other despotic powers of history will vehemently struggle against the call of the prophets to establish such a society. This too is one class of the strugglers and opponents of the prophethoods. Yet another class are the rabbis and the monks — those who deal with people's minds. The rabbis and monks of history try to keep the people in unawareness, and they do so in order to preserve the social standing they derive from the teaching they give the people. For if this teaching were a correct teaching — a life-building, awakening, enlightening teaching — then the survival of that lordship, that spiritual leadership, those material and prestige privileges would not be possible for this class either. Jesus son of Mary — his struggle was with the rabbis and monks before it ever reached the Roman emperor; for in his own time it had not reached [the emperor]. Those who did not want the Jesusine, the Messianic call to take root in the corrupt Jewish society of that time — who were they? They were the rabbis of the Jews, the scholars of the Jews — even though they knew Jesus well. In the era of the rise of Islam, those who did not want the prophetic movement, the Muhammadan movement and the Islamic mission, to take root and strike down roots — who were they? Those for whom, if the Prophet came, if those correct teachings came, that pure, delicious, thirst-quenching wellspring of Islam came and filled the minds to overflowing, opened the eyes, lifted away the ambiguities and the ignorances — for whom there would no longer be any scope for lordship and [comfortable] life. It is clear: where Islam is, the fabrications of Ka'b al-Ahbar and 'Abd Allah ibn Salam have no color and no luster. It is obvious that when the sun of truth shines upon the precinct of human minds and thoughts, their superstitions and their darknesses dissolve and vanish of themselves. Therefore, as soon as the prophet comes — the prophetic society which is based on awareness, based on information and knowledge and clear-sightedness and free thought and enlightenment, the divine, monotheistic society — as soon as the tune of such a society begins to be played, among the first groups who sense danger are the rabbis and the monks. The people's awareness is to their detriment; the people's awareness is to the detriment of themselves and to the detriment of the powers allied with them. Both they themselves suffer harm, and the powers that are allied with them — even if they are not religious powers, but rather political powers — they too suffer harm; these too sense danger. I read this in that letter of the Fourth Imam (may God's blessings be upon him) to Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri. In it the Imam (peace be upon him) draws for Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri a picture so vivid that only today do we newly understand the very thing he explained that day — today, when we, in the twentieth century, turn back to history and observe the coalition of religious and political forces for crushing nations and destroying growths and talents and trampling the rights of the masses of the people. And know that the least thing you have concealed and the lightest burden you have borne is that you befriended the desolation of the oppressor [grew familiar with him and kept him company] and smoothed for him the path of error by your drawing near to him when you drew near, and by your answering him when you were called. This is a letter which is in Tuhaf al-'Uqul; the exposition and interpretation of this letter would take long. (Moreover, some months ago I read out and explained this letter in detail. Those gentlemen who are interested — in the noble book Tuhaf al-'Uqul, among the words of Imam al-Sajjad (may God's blessings be upon him), "his letter, peace be upon him, to Muhammad ibn Muslim al-Zuhri" — and Muhammad ibn Muslim and Muhammad ibn Shihab are one and the same person; he is named after his father, Muslim, and after his father's grandfather, Shihab; Muhammad ibn Muslim and Muhammad ibn Shihab — find this. As it happens, this book has also been translated; Tuhaf al-'Uqul has been translated two or three times by now; consult it, and find this, God willing, and those who are interested may read it.) In short, then, one of the groups whom the coming of the prophet alarms and terrifies is this very group of the masters of religion — but of the non-real religion, the superstitious religion. These too were among those who, in the face of the prophets' missions, in the face of the liberating calls, opposed and struggled vehemently. We have an example of this in the case of the call of Islam itself; we have it also in the affair of Abraham, the Friend of the Merciful — that all the attendants of the idol-temples, when they saw that the idols had been broken, said, "Who has done this to them?" and set up an uproar and clamor and outcry; and it was those very people who incited Nimrod to cast Abraham into the fire. The ordinary people had no knowledge of the idol-temple; the idol-temple has a priest, it has attendants. It was those very people who, in the affair of the appearance of Moses son of 'Imran in the Pharaonic society, reassured Pharaoh and emboldened him, saying, "We, by our own magic, by our own soothsaying, will nullify his magic." It was those very people who, in the call of Jesus (peace be upon him), formed the greatest opponents and the front against Jesus and prevented the call of Jesus. Look — this ordinary Gospel, these very Gospels that are in hand — look, with all the distortions, these things are there; these historical portions of it can be a teller, for us, of the historical realities of that time. And again, it was these very people who, in the call of Islam — these many stories you have heard — kept coming to pose questions, to test, to set people upon the Prophet; to set up the affair of the mubahalah (the mutual imprecation) with the Christians of Najran, and the like, and the like; to reassure the people and bind them to the rotten and ancient stuff they possessed. When a new idea is raised in a society, and the course of human thought is bound to move toward greater comprehension and consciousness and awareness, the nature of the matter — the nature of the human being — is this: that human beings, old and young, must set out after this new current of thought, and they do set out. Human beings want the new word more; that which is more acceptable to their minds, they accept more. Moreover, "the lamp of falsehood has no radiance." Superstitions are falsehood; religious distortions and substitutions are falsehood. If some clear statement, some rational mind, should prove the emptiness of these superstitions, their nonsensical and baseless nature, the people would readily accept it. But it is this very class of rabbis and monks who, throughout history, despite the clarity of the prophets' speech, did not let the people believe in the prophets. Consider how the prophets came: with manifest authority, with a clear proof, everywhere carrying light with them, everywhere enlightening human beings. They never spoke obscurely, they never delivered pseudo-philosophical jargon to the people, they did not philosophize for the people; they spoke clean and straight and frankly with the people. Given all this, the people ought to have accepted very quickly, ought very quickly to have grasped the soundness and firmness of the speech of the prophets of God. What is the cause that so much obstinacy and bigotry and stubbornness was expended, and the call of the prophets was not accepted quickly and easily? Why? It is these very soothsayers and rabbis and monks, and that very class which the Qur'an names "the rabbis and the monks" — these were the obstacle. They summoned the people to greater and greater adherence to the wrong intellectual traditions and the inherited superstitious notions. These too were alarmed at the coming of the prophet, because they knew that if the prophet came, if the prophet was commissioned, if that society came into being — the society in which there is awareness, in which there is light, in which there is intellectual growth, in which all the people are either learned or learners — there would no longer be any arena for the illiterate and the self-satisfied and the falsely revered and the people who wish human beings to remain in unawareness and superstition; there would no longer be any place for these in that society. This is why these too struggled, with all possible vehemence, against the prophets, against the divine calls, against the historical missions. That makes four classes. Up to this point in my talk, I have not cited anything from the Qur'an; I have only explained this much: what kind of world the prophets come to build. I described that world for you — what kind of world it is, what kind of society it is. Then I said: who fears such a society? It is obvious — of a society in which the accumulation of wealth is forbidden, the wealth-hoarders are afraid. Of a community and order in which class difference is a sin, is forbidden, is abolished, the upper classes are afraid. The one who has grown accustomed to living among the upper classes — if he sees that an order is going to come into power which will bring him down, which will level him with the dust-dwelling people, or level the dust-dwelling people up to him — it makes no difference, for him it is the same — he can remain a lord only if there are slaves; otherwise, if all are also lords, then he again is no lord. The lordship of the lords lies in this: that they alone are lords and the others are slaves; otherwise, if the slaves became lords, then lords become many, lords become cheap. The costliness of the lords is on account of their fewness. This society that comes into being either brings him down and sets him at the level of the slaves, or raises the slaves up and places them at his level; lords become many — so he falls from being falsely revered. So he too opposes. That absolute despotic power, too, will not be on very happy terms with the call of the prophets and the rule of the prophet — and the reason is plain: he knows that if the prophet comes, the first one to be struck is he. This is the one whose heart desires to be — in the expression of the late Mirza-yi Na'ini (may God's mercy and exaltation be upon him) in the introduction to Tanbih al-Ummah — the doer of whatever he wills and the ruler by whatever he wishes; the one who wishes to be, in the Qur'an's expression, He is not questioned about what He does — who does whatever he does, says whatever he says, goes wherever he goes, and no one may ask "why." This too is one class — and the class of rabbis and monks we have also explained. These four classes, which we have determined and specified for you by mental analysis, are — as it happens — named in the Qur'an. Except that the people who are in the class of the chiefs and heads and khans and ringleaders of the powers and orders, those who hold these posts, are referred to in the Qur'an as the mala', and are alluded to. The chiefs of his people who disbelieved said — the mala', those people who fill the eyes; yamla'una al-'ayn, those persons of pomp and majesty, those who, when they walk, their glitter and pomp, their "clear the way, get back" outriders, make every human being submissive and small before them. The mala', those eye-fillers — one class of the opponents of the prophets are these. Like whom? In the ignorant, Pharaonic order, like Haman. And Pharaoh said: O Haman, build me a lofty tower; the fixer and the lackey of Mr. Pharaoh, and at the price of this fixing, at the price of this servitude and lackeyship for Pharaoh, he is the lord of all the non-Pharaohs, of all but Pharaoh. As it was said: "A fly that you set flying is a falcon." Haman is that very fly that Pharaoh has set flying, and it does the work of a falcon. He is weak, he is wretched, he is a lone man — to deal with him is within the power of any single man; but, relying on Pharaoh, he is all-in-all. Thus, when he walks in the street, if you look, you see that, as it were, the light around him casts such a curtain that a human being is utterly unable to bear to look at him. "Clear the way, get back, go, come — who is it? Haman is coming." Or, in the ignorant order of Mu'awiyah — for example, it is al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, it is Ziyad ibn Abihi — these are the same mala'. They keep the surroundings of Mu'awiyah's throne so firm and steady that whatever Mu'awiyah looks at, he sees a friend, he sees a companion-counselor, he sees a well-wisher. In the Qur'an this class is expressed as the mala'; the aristocratic class is expressed as the mutrafin, those who are afflicted with taraf — aristocratic indulgence, the great fortunes that are the source of miseries and crimes and trampling of rights; taraf. The verse that we have now written here for you and will recite says this very thing; it says: in every community, when We sent a prophet, its mutrafin, its aristocrats, were the first ones to oppose; they were the first ones to strike up the tune of opposition. This too is yet another class. That class of intellectual ringleaders the Qur'an names with this very name, "rabbis and monks": Indeed, many of the rabbis and the monks…, whose verse we will now explain for you. And that class of despotic powers — and here I am speaking by way of conjecture, this part I say as a probability — I think the Qur'an refers to them by the expression taghut. Although taghut is a general word; as I said the day before yesterday, taghut means that rebellious power in opposition to God. It may be that your own carnal soul is the taghut — for I read this hadith too: Your most hostile enemy is your own soul that lies between your two sides — your own soul, your own self, your own caprices and lusts, your own child, your own wife, your own beloved friend, may be your taghut; and it is also possible that the great powers are the taghut. Taghut, then, has a general meaning. But since we see that in the Qur'an the taghut is everywhere set in opposition to Allah, and is portrayed as possessing very important roles and stations, we understand that the taghut is the highest stations of an ignorant order. In one place He says: Those who believe fight in the way of God, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the taghut — the believer fights in the way of God, the unbeliever in the way of the taghut; the taghut is in opposition to God. In another place He says: God is the Guardian of those who believe; He brings them out of the darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve, their guardians are the taghut; they bring them out of the light into the darknesses. From the beginning of the Qur'an to its end, in about eight places I think the word taghut is used; in seven places of the Qur'an the word taghut is used, and the style of the expressions is such that when a human being looks, it appears that what is meant by taghut is those same upper despotic powers at the apex. In short, these four classes are the opponents of the prophets — not only in the time of Moses, not only in the time of the Prophet, not only in the time of Abraham, but in every age of history. Wherever a word of truth appeared, wherever a claim and a tune calling for following the prophets of God and the heavenly books came into being, these four classes lined up — either simultaneously, or one after another. This is the general rule. And here lies the instructive point of these noble verses. Allow me to read the verses; our time is running out. First, in the first verse, in the first portion, He says: And thus We appointed, thus — meaning "thus." Thus, meaning what? Meaning "like you." Just as in your own case, O Prophet, you see, likewise We appointed for every prophet — an enemy, an adversary — devils from among mankind and the jinn. These enemies are the devils of mankind and the jinn. I have explained the meaning of "devil"; this too confirms it. "Devil" means the evil-creating powers that are outside the human being. One kind is this very Iblis who did not prostrate to Adam (peace be upon him), Adam the father of mankind. That devil is the most ill-famed of the devils of the world; the ill-fame of the other devils too is laid to his account, poor wretch. Every corruption, every wrong that any devil — whether of mankind or of the jinn — works in the world, the people write its ill-fame, its curse, to the account of that Iblis and reckon it from him, whereas some of these devils are the masters of that devil. — these devils who are the enemies of the prophet, some of them inspire others, teach others. Sometimes the class of rabbis and monks teaches the class of the mala'; sometimes the class of the mala' teaches the rabbis and monks; sometimes the mutrafin instruct both classes; and most often all three classes take their inspiration from the taghut. — some of these enemies give inspiration and instruction to others. — with beautiful, adorned, fair-seeming words, with fair-seeming speech. I will, in a future chapter among the chapters relating to prophethood, expound on this fair-seeming speech. So fair-seeming — Pharaoh says: Let me kill this Moses. Well, why? Why kill him? Indeed, I fear that he may change your religion — he says, "I fear that Moses will ruin your religion." This is the word of Pharaoh. Pharaoh fears that Moses will come and ruin the people's religion. Such fair-seeming words —, fair-seeming speech —, out of creating delusion and ignorance; they delude the people and one another. And had your Lord willed, they would not have done it — if God had willed and decreed, these people would not have done this deed, would not have found the means. If God had willed to turn all these opposing classes to ashes in a single instant and scatter them to the wind, He could; but, well, the divine custom (sunnah) is not so, God's law is not so. The divine law is this: that they should carry out their enmities so that the believer may be distinguished from the non-believer. The road should be a little uneven so that the people whose thighs, whose shanks, are strong — who can run, who can go — may be recognized, may be made evident. On an asphalted road, where everyone can walk these few steps, [there is no test]. And had your Lord willed, they would not have done it — had your God willed, had your Lord decreed, these people would not have been able to carry out these enmities; but God Most High never decrees a decree contrary to the custom He Himself has placed in the world. So leave them and what they fabricate — leave them with whatever they slander and lie about. What does "leave them" mean? It means: do not grieve and be distressed at their words, do not weaken, do not lose your path. — the result of these words is this: this fair-seeming, deceiving, delusory speech has as its result that the hearts which do not believe in the Hereafter fall under the influence of this false propaganda, this fair-seeming propaganda. That propaganda which is made against the call of the prophets, the propaganda which is made against the word of truth and the true tune of monotheism — this false propaganda, this deceiving and fair-seeming propaganda, deceives certain hearts, draws them to itself. But the hearts of whom? — the hearts of those who have no faith and no belief in the Hereafter. Therefore the one who believes in the Hereafter does not so quickly become the captive and the dupe of false propaganda. — so that the hearts of those who do not bring faith in the Hereafter may incline toward it; and that they may be pleased with it — so that these hearts may be pleased with these words; and that they may commit what they are committing — so that they may perform, may commit, what they are committing. See: in this verse He has alluded, in summary, that all the prophets have enemies — enemies of jinn and mankind, open and hidden — and these enemies give inspiration to one another, teach one another, instruct one another. In these verses there is only this much. After these verses, [there are] verses from Surat al-Mu'min which I will not now find from the Qur'an itself — if I were to look for them, it would take long, the time is ending — so I read them from this very written page. And indeed We sent Moses with Our signs — truly We sent Moses together with Our signs, Our marks; and with a manifest authority — with a manifest proof or power. What was that manifest power, that manifest proof, that manifest argument? His strong logic, his word of truth, the staff in his hand, his white hand. With these matters, by which every human being, ordinary and extraordinary, must accept his word, We sent Moses. Toward whom did We send him? To war against whom did We send him? Who was on the other side of Moses in this society? If we read the verses with a little reflection, see how clearly the matter comes out; social matters of this importance, in the firm verses, in the outward sense of the verses, with this clarity. To war against whom? Toward whom? To Pharaoh — toward Pharaoh. Who else? and Haman — toward Haman, the minister of Pharaoh, of the heads of Pharaoh's kingdom, of the eye-filling aristocrats, the same mala'. Who else? and Qarun — who is Qarun? Qarun is a wealthy man, Qarun is a moneyed man; Qarun is not the chief, Qarun was not the sovereign of the society, was not Pharaoh — indeed Qarun even came for a later period — yet nonetheless He says that We sent [Moses] toward him too, sent him to war against him too. That is, for Moses, Pharaoh and Qarun are one and the same: just as he fights Pharaoh, just as he fights Haman, he fights Qarun too. Even though Qarun's crime is this: that he has treasured up wealth, gathered the people's possessions for himself. At a tablecloth upon which they have set food enough for fifty persons, fifty persons eat of it, become full, and much is even left over; this gentleman has sat cross-legged, or spread out his legs, and put the food of forty-nine persons in front of himself. Well, it is obvious that one man does not eat the food of forty-nine persons — but he does not let the others eat either. Forty-nine other persons' food — one person eats it; this one person has imprisoned the food of forty-nine other persons — would that he had eaten poison! — he has imprisoned it; Qarun is of this trade. Qarun has imprisoned the public wealth; that is why Moses comes to war against him too. The strange thing is that, although Pharaoh is at the head of the government, he is one class; Haman is beside him, he is another class; Qarun has no connection with them at all, he is wealthy, he is a treasure-hoarder, he is another class; and despite there being three classes, their answer is one answer. All three take one stance in the face of Moses (peace be upon him), say one word. What do they say? So they said: a sorcerer, a liar — they said, "He is a lying, falsehood-fabricating sorcerer." And when he brought them the truth from Us — when Moses stated and brought the truth, from Us, to these opponents, what did they say? Did they sit silent? Did they sit waiting for Moses to come and cut down the root and stem of their existence and the rotten tree of their life? Never. Just as Moses, with the order he proposed, was clawing at their life, they too clawed at the head and face of Moses. What did they say? They said: Kill the sons of those who have believed with him — kill the young sons of those who believed and gave their faith to Moses. Those who believed in the thought of this newly arrived prophet, this new and luminous and life-building thought — kill their sons. Kill them so that they may not be there, so that they may not threaten us tomorrow; kill them so that they may not be there, so that no spark may strike from their being; kill their young men. and keep their women alive — and keep their women alive. Now why keep the women alive? There is an explanation for that. So that their lineage may be mixed; so that they may be drawn into shamelessness; so that they may be made to gorge upon the instincts; so that they may become cowed. There are several aspects to this. But then He says: And the plot of the disbelievers is only in error — they drew up these schemes and plots, but the plots of the disbelievers are in error; that is, they are astray, they do not reach a result. It is like an arrow that you shoot toward some enemy, some person, some target — and a wind comes and makes the arrow lose its way from this course. They shoot the arrow, but the winds of God's custom come and carry these arrows away from this aim and target. Let them lay schemes and plots for Moses. Here too you noticed: in this verse, three classes are named — the class of Pharaoh, the class of Haman, the class of Qarun; here these three classes have been named together. In another verse that exists, again the mutrafin are named, especially the class of Qarun. He says: And We did not send a warner into any town — We did not send into any town a warner, a forewarner — meaning a prophet — but that its affluent ones said — except that the mutrafin of it, the aristocrats and the wealthy and the treasure-hoarders of that town said: Indeed, in that with which you have been sent, we are disbelievers — "We disbelieve in what you have brought, we do not accept it." And what was their reason for not accepting? And they said: We are greater in wealth and children — "We have more money than you, we have more children than you," they said to the prophet. On what grounds? See how low the level of his thinking is. And we will not be punished — "We will not be of those who are tormented." And as for the last verse, which is from Surat al-Tawbah, it concerns the class of the rabbis and the monks. O you who have believed — O you who have believed; Indeed, many of the rabbis and the monks — truly many of the scholars and ascetics; surely consume the wealth of the people wrongfully — without doubt they devour the people's wealth without entitlement; and bar [them] from the way of God — they devour their money, and they also turn them away from the path of God. And again He speaks of the class of the mutrafin, the money-gatherers, the treasure-hoarders: And those who… hoard up gold and silver — those who treasure up gold and silver; and do not spend it in the way of God — they do not spend it in the way of God; then give them tidings of a painful punishment — give them the tidings of a grievous, painful torment. We, therefore, in these few verses and in dozens of other verses of the Qur'an, see the mark of these four classes and recognize their enmities.