Ep 4 — Faith (2)

Session 2: Faith (2). delivered Friday, 29 Shahrivar 1353 / 3 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Anfal (8:2-4). The believers are only those who, when God is mentioned, their hearts tremble; and when His signs are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely; those who keep up the prayer and spend out of what We have provided them. Those are the true believers; for them are ranks with their Lord, and forgiveness, and a generous provision. The chapter opens on the verse just before it: They ask you — O Prophet — about the spoils (al-anfal)… They ask you, in short, about the anfal — for whom are they, and to whom do they rightfully belong? The anfal can be rendered this way: it means the wealth that belongs to the Muslims at large. One kind is the income that falls to the Muslims in war — not every income, but specific ones. Then the mines, that underground wealth; the forests; the vast plains and grazing lands scattered here and there and across the mountains. In short, the anfal is the wealth that belongs to no one particular individual and to no one particular group, but is at the disposal of everyone — belonging to the whole nation. One kind of it — as already mentioned — is the particular spoils that fall to the warriors of the Muslim army in war. The first time this issue came up for the Muslims was, it seems, at the Battle of Badr. The Muslims were debating among themselves: to whom do these spoils belong? A disagreement arose, so they brought the matter to the Holy Prophet — they asked that noble one — and a verse of the Qur'an gave the answer. God inspires His Prophet: Say: the anfal belong to God and the Messenger. The anfal belong to God. And what does "belonging to God" mean? It means they are not for any specific, designated group of God's servants — they are the Prophet's. To belong to God means that whatever bears God's name must be spent for divine aims, for divine goals. The "wealth of God" is not spent on God's own needs; God Almighty has no such interests, no need, no want that His wealth should be spent to meet it. What belongs to God is in reality the wealth of God's servants, and it must be spent in the channels of welfare that God Almighty has appointed. So mal-Allah — the anfal belonging to God — means this. "And the Messenger" — what does this mean? Does the Messenger stand as a pole opposite God? No. Anyone might think himself entitled to dispose of God's wealth. Everyone might say, "This is God's wealth, and we too are God's servants" — and under this pleasant-looking name, under this attractive, popular slogan that "this wealth is God's wealth and we too are God's servants," they might spend the public wealth on their own personal expenses. Such a thing is possible. The wealth of God must indeed reach the welfare of the generality of Muslims and the true servants of God. But reaching the generality does not mean a free-for-all — everyone spending whatever his heart desires. There must be a central authority, a powerful hand reckoned the representative of God and the guardian (qayyim) of the people's affairs. Who is he? He is the Messenger. And the Messenger stands here not in his capacity as messengership and prophethood, but in his capacity as divine governance. That is, when the Messenger departs this world, the Imam has full charge of the anfal. The Imam means the divine ruler. In the era when the Infallible Imam is not governing the people, the one who can and must govern them on God's behalf — he has full charge of the anfal and the public wealth. In any case, this wealth is public. The mines belong to everyone, the forests and reed-beds to everyone, the grazing lands to everyone, the spoils taken from the enemy to everyone, the royal treasures (sawafi al-muluk) to everyone — and so with every like case cited for the anfal. Yet even though it belongs to everyone, in the end it must rest at the disposal of a powerful divine authority: none other than the Islamic ruler. And who is that? In the time of the Prophet, the Messenger of God; after him, the Infallible Imam; and if there is no Infallible Imam, the just divine leader — the one who must hold the reins of the Islamic government in his hand. He has authority over the matter of the anfal. This is the first part of the verse, which was not the part under our discussion. After it appoints the use of the anfal, it says: So fear God, and set right the relations between you, and obey God and His Messenger, if you are believers. If you are believers, do these three things. First, the fear of God — "fear God" — so be wary of God. In the necessarily approximate Persian translation we have given on this sheet: "fear God," so be wary of God — that is one. Second, "And set right the relations between you" — set right what is between you. Remove the disputes from among yourselves. In favor of truth, let those who speak something other than the truth give up their words; remove the disputes from among yourselves. "And set right the relations between you" — set right what is between you; do not fall upon each other over trivial things; do not go hunting for pretexts to fall upon one another. This is exactly the mark of a people who delight in quarreling with friends and enemies alike: they go looking for small pretexts to fight, to dispute, and to sow discord. And to people of this sort, the counsel of God and the Messenger is this: instead of hunting for pretexts to fight your friends, do not pass up the pretexts for fighting your enemies. If you are a person of war, then fight the enemy — but why your brother? Why your friend? "And set right the relations between you." These two are great counsels. The third counsel is general, encompassing all good deeds and abstention from all evil: "and obey God and His Messenger" — and obey, take the command of, God and His Messenger, "if you are believers." Faith is an inclination of the heart — an intellectual, doctrinal, and psychological attachment to a matter, to a person, to a pole, to a center. But it is not summed up merely in the heart's having this inclination, this leaning, this attachment. Faith truly exists in a person only when he acts in accordance with that faith. Only when he is bound to the requirements of faith and the commitments of faith can he claim to be a true believer. Only when his life, and the very reality of his being, differs from that of one who denies God can he say "I believe in God and am convinced of Him." Take the one who today denies God — how does his conduct differ from the conduct of those who claim to believe in God? Both commit oppression. Both are drowned up to the throat in materiality. Both, for the sake of these few breaths of life — a few more days of breathing, a couple more morsels to eat and fouling the air, a couple more days of comfortable living — are ready to trample every virtue underfoot. The only difference is that this one openly says, "I am not convinced of God," while the other claims that he is. What kind of faith is this? Here the verse of the Qur'an is explicit. Here there is no longer the reckoning of rational arguments that admit of doubt; you must do these deeds, if you are believers. And one of these deeds is obey God and the Messenger. Obey God and the Prophet; set out on the path of following their command. What is the command of God? Whatever it is, this much is evident: God has appointed duties for us — over a person's wealth, over a person's life, over a person's lifespan, over a human's relations with other humans, with God, with animals, and even with plants. Here too, if you obeyed God, you can say "we are believers." Otherwise faith is of no use. A person's heart and soul may be attached to some pole, but if the radiance of that attachment is never reflected in action — in the hand, in the tongue, in the foot, in the other limbs and members — then in the view of Islam the very name of faith does not hold true for him. This is the logic of the Qur'an. "Fear God" — so be wary of God; "and set right the relations between you" — set right what is between you; "and obey God and His Messenger" — obey God and His Messenger; "if you are believers." Now, on the occasion of the name "believer" at the end of this verse, the next verse continues the discourse concerning the attributes of the believers and the conditions of faith: The believers are only those who, when God is mentioned, their hearts tremble; and when His signs are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely; those who keep up the prayer and spend out of what We have provided them. Those are the true believers. For the true believer, five traits are appointed here. These five traits may not yet be present in the speaker or the listener; but if a person makes some effort toward bringing them into being within himself, he is still on the path of faith, on the path of the goal of faith, and worthy of the name "believer." The true believer is the one in whom these five traits are present. First: "The believers are only" (innama al-mu'minun) — exclusively, the believers; "those who" (alladhina) are the ones who, "when God is mentioned" (idha dhukira llah) — when God is remembered, "their hearts tremble" (wa-jilat qulubuhum) — their hearts come into fear. What does "to come into fear" mean? What does fearing God mean? Is it like a sinner before a judge, or is it another and subtler kind? Someone might say, "I have committed no sin, so I do not fear God." True, the fear of a sinner before the judge and the prosecutor — the one who must punish the man — is ruled out where there is no sin. But who can be certain that he has no sin? There is another kind of fear, and it arises from knowledge (ma'rifah). In the face of great things, mighty essences, majestic realities, a human inevitably feels awe and bewilderment. This is a property of a person's very existence; his spiritual and bodily composition demands it. In the face of anything grand, every human feels a state of awe rise within him. This awe does not come from fearing that being — he may have no fear of it at all, in the sense of any aggression; the fear here is not the fear born of sin. Rather this awe and dread arises from sensing His grandeur and one's own smallness before Him. Such a fear of God is fitting, is desirable, is necessary, is beneficial. Consider the one who sees himself, before the Lord, as small and deficient and lowly, and who beholds God as dominant, all-encompassing, and overpowering (muhaymin, musaytir) over every aspect of his affairs. Such a person strives to travel no path but that straight line of conduct which the God of the world has appointed for him, and to move no other way. This is the greatest guarantor of action, movement, and effort in a Muslim person and in a Muslim society. This that you see — the Commander of the Faithful, in the depths of the night, in the nights of the month of Ramadan, writhing upon himself and shedding tears; this that you see — Imam Sajjad at times crying out; this that you see — the Messenger of God, with all his majesty and grandeur, when the last ten days of the month of Ramadan come, saying, "Roll up my bedding," not spreading any bed for himself — that is, the nights are no longer the time for sleep; they are the time for worship, the time for supplication, the time for humility before the Lord — do not imagine that these are contrived acts being performed. How deficient is the one who says that the Imam, in the Du'a of Abu Hamzah, means only to teach the people something and is not speaking of himself. How untutored in the spirit of supplication, in the manner of God's righteous servants communing intimately with their Lord, is the one who imagines that the weeping and lamentation of the Imam, peace be upon him, are for the sake of instruction. Did they weep artificially so that you and I would learn? No — this is a mistake. They truly shed tears. And why? Because their knowledge of God is greater. In the sacred being of the Lord, the Commander of the Faithful sees a grandeur that these near-sighted eyes of yours and mine cannot see. "You are great, and do not show forth in a small mirror." The small mirror of our soul cannot reflect within itself that wondrous grandeur — but the mirror of the soul of the Commander of the Faithful can. He comprehends this grandeur, he grasps it, he perceives it — and that is the very reason he writhes upon himself like that and sheds tears. When the remembrance of God comes into the midst, a certain state takes hold of the believer's heart: that state of awe, that state of reverent fear (khashyah), that sense of fear and dread, that terror that arises from feeling one's own smallness before the grandeur of God: "when God is mentioned, their hearts tremble." God ceases, for a person, to be a plaything; the name of God ceases to be a kind of habitual incantation. In a gathering someone sits down and says "ya Allah" as a mere phrase of respect; he yawns and finishes it off with "la ilaha illa Allah," out of weariness. Such states are the sign of indifference, of dull perception, of a soul gone numb before the remembrance of God and the name of God and the grandeur of God. From all of this, the heart of a God-knowing, grandeur-perceiving person departs — one who comprehends and feels the grandeur of the Lord. "The believers are only those who, when God is mentioned, their hearts tremble." The believers are those whose hearts, when God is remembered, come into trembling (wajal) — into fear and dread and terror, into the sense of grandeur in the Lord and of smallness in themselves; their hearts become filled with this sense. This is one. "And when His signs are recited to them, it increases them in faith." Another sign of the believer: when the signs (ayat) of God are recited to them — whether they recite them themselves or someone else recites these signs to them — their faith is increased. "It increases them in faith." That faith is like a seed in his heart, in his soul: it grows, becomes great, comes up like a plant, and — like a tree — grows sturdy in stem and root, until the possibility of uprooting it disappears. Faith in the form of stagnant water has no meaning within the being of a believer. Consider those who learned a single word in childhood, and then, through the doubt of the adolescent years, watched that one word fall from its firmness and its grandeur in their souls. It grew small, became deficient, became insignificant; only a half-faith, a half-truth, remained in their souls. And that too, as various currents and events came, was diminished and diminished. Such a faith too will one day be easily taken from a person. A faith held in trust (mustawda'), a borrowed ('ariyat) faith — the believer is not like this. The true believer is the one who, if a single word of the realities and the religious and divine teachings is in his heart, takes that one word and — through reflection, through precision of insight, through thought, through whatever is conducive to that one word — makes his faith greater, and rescues it from vanishing. This is the true believer. From this verse, from this sentence, we derive that the believing person's faith must increase through the recitation of the Qur'an. And from this sentence we take a proof — from this word of God we take a proof. To those who say "do not translate the Qur'an, do not give its meaning, do not interpret it, for our minds do not reach it," we answer: if we could not understand the Qur'an, how is it that our faith increases by the reading of it? So it is plain: the Qur'an is not a book of code. The Qur'an is a book that must be read with the intent of understanding, and understood with the intent of increasing and growing stronger in the faith of the believer. We take this proof. Now the continuation of the verse: "and upon their Lord they rely." Another sign of the believers is that they rely and depend upon the Lord. "And when His signs are recited to them, it increases them in faith" — that is the second condition, the second trait. "And upon their Lord they rely" — but what does it mean that they rely (tawakkul)? Does it mean they fold their hands together and say, "Let God set it right Himself"? No, the meaning of tawakkul is not this. Picture the man who folds his hands in the face of his obligations and responsibilities, and who, instead of holding his own power responsible, presumes a divine miracle to be responsible. Such a man should know that the Qur'an has rejected this deed — it dealt a firm blow to the mouth of the Children of Israel, who said to Moses: You and your Lord go, busy yourselves with the war, do battle with the enemy; we will sit here — in my own expression, by the wall, in the shade — and when you have conquered, then inform us too so that we may come. The Qur'an rejects this method. It is the method of the accursed, banished Children of Israel, far from the road of humanity, deprived of the delights of religion and faith — theirs, not a Muslim's. So tawakkul does not mean this. This saying that has become current among the people — and I am saying it so that all may hear and understand — when they say, "Sir, God Himself must set things right; nothing can come from God's servant" — this is wrong. If nothing could come from God's servant, if the will of man and the power of man were of no avail for uprooting corruption, God would not have mobilized the prophets. He would not have invited the people to follow them. He would not have sent the divine prophets, with their heavy missions, into the arena of battle in this world. But you see that God has sent persons to uproot corruption, and those persons are of the human race — so know that human corruption must be uprooted by humans. So what does tawakkul mean? It means that, in every state, your reliance and your hope are upon God. Examine this carefully and you will see what it does: with this expression I am stating — that in every state your reliance and hope are upon God — tawakkul ceases to be a kind of narcotic and reveals itself as a stirring agent, an agent of dynamism. You have seen what a person does in the hardships of life, in crises, at the point where his hands fall short of every outward means — have you seen? Have you heard? He does one of several things. Either he surrenders to the enemy, saying, "When nothing can come from me, what am I to do?" — surrender to the enemy, that is one. Or he surrenders to the ordinary course of life: he does not go and fall prostrate before the enemy, but in practice he takes up some path and routine, gives up all movement and effort, and forgets that he has, in reality, surrendered to the ordinary current of life. Such a man too, though outwardly he has not surrendered to the enemy, has inwardly surrendered to him. This too is a state the common run of people adopt in such crises. The other way is to put an end to one's own life. Take that gentleman who, once he comes to power, is harassed from all sides by the gamesmanship of the international powers — every day they raise some uproar against him from some corner of his country. And when he is forced and compelled, when he is wearied, exhausted, made wretched, he puts an end to his own life; he commits suicide. These are the paths that open before a Godless person at an impasse. When you have reached a dead end, when it seems to you that this is the end of the alley and there is no way through, several doors open for ordinary people: surrendering to the enemy, surrendering to the natural course of life, surrendering to events — every one of them a surrender; or suicide and self-destruction, wiping yourself out to be rid of it all, and at times regret. But for the person with God, a different door opens at the impasse, a door whose opening shuts the others upon him — the doors of betraying one's own honor. What is that door? It is the door of tawakkul upon God. He says, "Here is an impasse." And he answers himself, "The God I know breaks through the impasse too. What is an impasse? In God's view we have no impasses. Every one of them, by the hand of God's power, stands open at the far end! There is a way." Is there an impasse higher than the Battle of Uhud? The small army of Islam, in the very midst of gathering the spoils, is suddenly attacked from two directions, because a few soldiers grew heedless. One group attacks from the front, another from behind. These men have laid down their swords, dismounted from their horses, set their weapons on the ground — and suddenly they see two bands falling on them from both sides, armed, savage, enraged. It is plain what an army without weapons and without equipment does at such a moment: it flees. And they fled. Satan, through the throat of the Satan-natured ones, proclaimed that the Prophet too had perished. It is very clear; Satan always does these things. One of his plainest schemes, one of his most exposed hands, is this: to proclaim the defeat of the divine and merciful front sooner than its time — "Yes, you are defeated; the Prophet has passed away." In such a crisis, in such an impasse, what does a believer who relies on God do? Sir, is there an impasse higher than this? The paths of deliverance entirely closed, the weapons fallen on the ground, the enemy equipped, dominant, overpowering — what comes to a person's aid here is that window which only the God-worshippers possess: reliance upon God. What impasse? Which is the impasse? Suppose the Prophet has passed away — the God of the Prophet has not perished. The duty has not perished. With tawakkul here, whom does the man act like? Like the Commander of the Faithful, 'Ali ibn Abi Talib; like Abu Dujanah; like two or three other soldiers — these were people of tawakkul. And who were the ones without tawakkul? Those who ran from Uhud to Medina without so much as looking back, all the way to the very gates of the city. Now you have seen what tawakkul means. Consider the man who pretends that tawakkul is folding your hands and sitting idle, waiting on an unknown future, stripping his faith of his own power — who pretends that tawakkul means a stroke of cancellation upon man's will and his strength. Such a man either does not understand tawakkul at all — Islam never sinks in, and he never grasps what tawakkul is — or he understands it perfectly well but has no honor in him, and wants to twist it on purpose, so that people are raised without tawakkul, raised wrong. The meaning of tawakkul is this: "and upon their Lord they rely." In my view, man has two mighty wings for his flight through the efforts of life: one is patience, one is tawakkul. Any ummah that has these two wings passes wholly beyond the reach of its earthbound enemies — the wing of patience and the wing of tawakkul: "and upon their Lord they rely." These are three signs for the believer. The worth of faith; what kind of thing is faith? The characteristics of faith — these are vital discussions that, God willing, I shall take up tomorrow. For today, what is raised concerning faith is these signs and commitments of faith. Third: "and upon their Lord they rely." Fourth: "those who keep up the prayer" — those who establish the prayer. There is a difference between the expression alladhina yusallun (those who pray) and "those who keep up the prayer" (alladhina yuqimun al-salah). Yusallun means "they perform the prayer." If mere performance were the point — if this getting up and bending down were all that mattered — there would have been no need to say "those who keep up the prayer," no need to bring two words and give them length and interpretation. They could simply have said yusallun, alladhina yusallun, those who pray. So it is plain: "those who keep up the prayer" — those who establish the prayer — is something other than reciting prayer. It is something else, a higher and loftier reality. In your view, what is this reality? What does "establishing the prayer" mean? Several possibilities can be supposed, and it may be that all of them are correct. One is this: establishing the prayer, keeping it up, means performing the prayer in a complete form, an all-around form, a perfect form: "those who keep up the prayer." And "establishment" (iqamah), in Arabic usage, carries exactly these meanings — that is, carrying out the work in a complete form: So set your face toward the religion, devoted purely (to it). Turn the whole face, the whole being, toward religion, in a complete form. This is one possibility, and it holds true. Suppose a person establishes the prayer in this sense — performs it in a complete form, with correct pillars, attentive to the teachings and inspirations of the prayer (about which I gave a fairly detailed discussion over several weeks, in that mosque). Then success and salvation surely await him. A person who prays well — all his difficulties become easy for him. You have heard that some of the great ones of religion, when they faced hardships and calamities, would pray two rak'ahs? You have heard that the Messenger of God, at the time of crises and severities, would turn to Bilal and say, "Comfort us, O Bilal" (arihna ya Bilal) — Bilal, ease us; go give the call to prayer. "Cool us, cool us, O Bilal" (abrid, abrid ya Bilal) — cool our hearts, O Bilal; that is, give the call to prayer. Truly, if a person establishes the prayer — with attention, with humility, with reverence, with presence of heart, with comprehension of what he is doing and saying, and with the intent of drawing a result from it — then certainly what has been promised to the believers will be his. This is one possibility. The other is that "those who keep up the prayer" means they establish prayer in society — they make society a praying society. Some people are content simply to pray themselves. Instead of seventeen rak'ahs in a day and night, they pray fifty-one, besides the other recommended prayers. Tell them, "Sir, the people are turning away from religion in droves," and they feel no grief over it. As the saying goes: "He carries his own rug off the wave." He says, "Sir, carrying our own rug off is already a great task, a great feat; we cannot get to others." Some are like this. But the deed that is the sign of faith is not this deed. To pray well yourself, yet pray only for yourself with no concern for others — this is not right. It is not right — that is, it is not complete; complete. What is the sign of faith? The establishment of prayer — keeping up the prayer in society, making everyone a praying people — not in the sense that everyone performs a single act of worship. (I want you to take your mind out of the mold of the words, to think more broadly. I think in just that way myself. Words are small and inadequate.) It is not that so-and-so does not pray, so let us make him pray; rather, a praying society means a society that is always remembering God and on God's path. A society that says: You alone do we worship, and from You alone do we seek help. A society that worships and serves none but God, and relies upon none but God and seeks help from none but God. A praying society means the society that every day disavows the ringleaders of corruption — that is, those upon whom is wrath (al-maghdubi 'alayhim) — and the followers of corruption — that is, those who go astray (al-dallin). This is their prayer. If a person strives to make other human beings into prayer-performers in this sense, then in reality he has made an effort on the path of the absolute servitude of God, on the path of uprooting corruption, on the path of doing away with "me" and "us," on the path of bringing about social and human unity among the individuals of the Muslim ummah and of humanity — an effort on these paths. This is what the establishment of prayer means. That is, you do something so that all the people, every day, five times, and each time several times, say "You alone do we worship, and from You alone do we seek help." O God! Only before You do we bend the neck of servitude and the back of servitude — not before any other than You. Five times every day, and each time several times, we disavow "those upon whom is wrath" and "those who go astray" — that is, the ringleaders of corruption and their followers; we declare our innocence of them. We make such a society. The establishment of prayer may also carry this meaning. "And spend out of what We have provided them" (wa mimma razaqnahum yunfiqun). What is another sign of the believers? It is that they spend (infaq) out of what We have provided them. What does infaq mean? (Yesterday I mentioned it in passing. Up to now I have explained the meaning of infaq perhaps ten times in the course of various discussions — this time too, let it be the eleventh.) Infaq means filling voids and needs. The spending that fills a void, that meets a need — that is infaq. Take this mosque: its wall has been freshly painted. If you came and gave money and painted it over again, that is not infaq. Why? Because there was no need for the work; there was paint already. Or say there was no paint, but the place had no need of paint. If you came to the dirt floors of the Imam Hasan Mosque and scattered sums of money in paint, and said, "I spent for the Imam Hasan Mosque; we took several boxes and cans of paint to the mosque and used them up — what did you do, sir? Over the clods and the dust and the mud, we painted it all" — yes, this is spending, but it is not infaq. Infaq is that there is a void and a need in the very fabric of society, and you fill that void, you meet that need; that is what infaq means. "And spend out of what We have provided them" — what does it mean? It means the believers are those who spend out of what We have provided them. The word "wealth" is not in it. Out of the moneys We gave them? No; it makes no difference — out of the money We gave, out of the lifespan We gave, out of the child We gave, out of the reputation We gave, out of the bodily strength We gave, out of the tongue We gave, out of the thought and brain We gave, out of all the resources We gave. He said "what We have provided them" — out of everything We have provided them, what do they do? "They spend." They make infaq. That is, they spend it in its place — not just any spending. This is one of the signs of the believer. O brother named "believer," O believer-seeming brother, O brother who is pleased to be called "believer" — who takes offense if someone shows the slightest wavering or doubt about your faith, who may even say, "What do you gain by counting us irreligious and faithless in your talk?" — O brother named "believer," do you make infaq? I do not ask whether you spend; yes, you spend a great deal. How much money do you give in these days of Ramadan, you cook delicious food, you spread a colorful table and invite the well-fed; how much you spend — but do you also make infaq? O dear speaker, how much you talk, how much breath you spend, how much you draw from your chest and your lungs and your being, from your body and your nerves; how much of the power of your speech you spend — but do you also make infaq out of this power? To speak much is no feat; to say what is needed, that is a feat. That is not infaq; this is infaq. O you who spend out of your reputations, out of your standing — you write a letter to someone, you go see someone about some affair, you arrange for a deed to be carried out, for a job to be given to so-and-so, for such-and-such a person to pay a fitting respect to so-and-so — you are spending your standing, but what of infaq? Do you also make infaq? O you who spend money in various places, in the name of religion and in the name of other than religion — yes, sometimes a person spends money in the name of religion while he has not made infaq — do not take fright at this saying, for it is a reality, and what a bitter reality! How much money is spent in the name of religion, but it is not infaq, because it does not fill a void, because it does not bring a pain to its cure, because it does not remove a need from this needy society. What is the substance of being a believer, what is the condition and sign of faith, is infaq: "and spend out of what We have provided them." After this, if you wish to spend time, if you wish to lay down your reputation, if you wish to spend money, think well; see whether, by this expenditure of yourself, you are making infaq, or spending pointlessly. "Those are the true believers." "For them are ranks with their Lord." For them are ranks — degrees, ranks, stations — "with their Lord." With their Lord. "And forgiveness (maghfirah)" — and forgiveness too is among these. It is the very forgiveness I explained to you yesterday — and I hope it has stayed whole in your memory. When God intends to grant someone forgiveness, He intends to heal a wound that sin has opened in the soul; He heals the wound of sin in such a person. "And forgiveness and a generous provision (rizq karim)" — an honorable provision, a generous provision, without abasement, without hardship, without disgrace. This is the provision God gives them. Wherever you find a believing society — and I am not speaking of an individual. Do not say, "By God's grace, we get our morsel of bread, we are comfortable enough, we have no grief, we are beholden to no one." Look carefully through the inner workings of that man's affairs and you will see it is all wretchedness and obligation. All those who hold the most disgraceful occupations do not feel that the work they do is disgraceful, that this morsel of bread is a morsel of disgrace — but I am speaking of a society. A society's morsel of bread is pure and honorable, joined with pride and dignity; it receives a noble and honorable provision only when it is believing and possessed of these attributes. And if it were this way, a society of faith would make good on all those slogans — the slogans the political parties of the world raise today, here and there, behind their loudspeakers, rightly or falsely, among the nations of the earth. Peace, freedom, welfare, comfort; without war, without bloodshed; with brotherhood, with sincerity; a high level of culture, a high level of literacy, a high level of provision — all these words and all this verbiage, some with meaning beneath them and some with none — every one of them, taken together, is realizable in a society of faith. "And a generous provision" — a generous and magnanimous provision. Concerning faith, there remain several matters I will speak about again, in a Qur'anic discussion like today's: the consciousness of faith, its not being fanatical and imitative; the realities and effects of faith, and the practical commitments of faith of the sort we read today. On these, God willing, on another day we shall speak, until afterward we reach the discussions that follow upon faith.