Ep 30 — Concerning Wilayat (3): Hijrah

Session 28: Concerning Wilayat (3): Hijrah. delivered Wednesday, 24 Mehr 1353 / 29 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat al-Nisa' (4:100). And whoever emigrates in the way of God will find in the earth many a place of refuge and abundance; and whoever goes forth from his house as an emigrant to God and His Messenger, and then death overtakes him — his reward has fallen due upon God; and God is ever Forgiving, Merciful. The question of hijrah (emigration) relates to the question of wilayah — to wilayah in the full breadth in which we have framed it here. We said that wilayah does three things. It forges a firm bond among the elements of the believing ranks with one another. It severs every form of attachment between the believing ranks and the non-believing ranks. And, at a further level, it forges a most powerful bond between every individual of the believing ranks and that central point and concentrated authority upon whom the administration of the Islamic society rests — that is, the imam, the wali, the ruler, the leader. Alongside this, we then discussed who the wali and leader is within the Islamic society. The Qur'an gave us our answer: Your guardian (wali) is only God, and His Messenger, and those who believe — those who establish the prayer and pay the alms while bowing. — to which we pointed, in connection with the affair of the Commander of the Faithful, may God's blessings be upon him. If we have been able to understand wilayah with this breadth, and if we do not reduce the matter to the level of the subsidiary issues of wilayah and to the second degree of wilayah — as some, without due attention, do reduce it — then the question of hijrah turns out to be one of the corollaries of the question of wilayah. Why do we say it this way? Because the principle of wilayah taught us that every human being must live within the wilayah of God and of the wali of God. It taught us that a human being must put all of his energies, all of his bodily, intellectual, and psychic vitalities, to work under the will of the divine wali and the governor who is min qibal Allah (from God) — that, in short, with every element of his being a human being must be a servant of God and not a servant of the Taghut. Once we accept and embrace these points, we have no choice but to accept what follows from them. Suppose our existence, our being and all our energies and vitalities, were not under the command of the divine wilayah but rather under the command of the Taghuti and satanic wilayah. Then our divine commitment is that we free ourselves from the bonds and shackles of the wilayah of the Taghut — that we rescue ourselves, liberate ourselves, and go beneath the most blessed shade of the wilayah of God. Coming out of that oppressive wilayah and entering that just wilayah — its name is hijrah. You see, then, that the question of hijrah is one of the matters that arises in the train of wilayah. This is why we placed the discussion at the very outset: "Concerning Wilayah" — that is, in connection with wilayah we mentioned three topics, and this is the fourth. Why must a human being flee from beneath the wilayah of the Taghut and Satan? This question that I am raising is very much worth attending to. When I raise the question, I would dearly like you, the friends who are listening, to break down and analyze it at once in the laboratory of your minds, so that you can give it an answer in accordance with your Islamic and religious learning and accumulated knowledge. Then, if your answer turns out not to coincide with my answer — the answer that I will give — and is at variance with it, there remains room for discussion between you and me. The question is this: Is it not possible to be within the wilayah of the Taghut and yet be a Muslim? Is it not possible for us to suppose a Muslim who is under the wilayah of Satan, yet who lives as a servant of the All-Merciful? Is such a thing possible or not? Picture a setting where, over the whole horizon and across all the regions of human life, a non-divine factor is busy ruling. A non-divine factor is administering the human body; a non-divine factor is administering human thought; that same factor is dragging the morale, the affections, and the sentiments of the members of society this way and that. A human being lives gripped in the fist of the power of such Taghuti and satanic factors. Can he nonetheless be a servant of God, be a Muslim? Is such a thing possible or impossible? I beg you to set about answering this. You need not answer aloud; prepare an answer to this question in your minds; see whether it is possible or not possible. In order for us to know whether it is possible or not, we must analyze and interpret this very question a little, so that the answer may become clear. We ask: can a person be under the wilayah of Satan and be a Muslim, or can he not? These two questions are, in reality, a single question composed of two parts; let us properly break down these two parts and see what each means. The first part is that a person be under the wilayah of Satan. What does it mean to be under the wilayah of Satan? What does wilayah even mean? If we place that meaning which we derived for wilayah from the verses of the Qur'an — a meaning which was supported by several Qur'anic verses — beside this phrase "the wilayah of Satan," then it becomes clear what the wilayah of Satan means. The wilayah of Satan means this: that Satan — in that comprehensive sense of "Satan" of which I have spoken many times — be dominant over all the powers, capacities, initiatives, and works within a person's being. Whatever the person does is along the course that Satan has determined; whatever he thinks is on the path that Satan inclines toward or sketches out. It is like a man who has fallen into the current of a river. A swift water is rushing down in the bed of a flood from the mountainside; a man falls into this river. Of course he does not wish to strike the huge, towering boulders and split his head open; of course he does not wish to be carried off by this water and dropped into a swamp; of course he does not wish to be choked and drowned amid the waves of this water — but, despite not wishing it, this swift current of water is carrying him off against his will. He flails his arms and legs too, clings to this side and that, grasps at everything — but the current of the water is a swift current; against his will it carries him away. The wilayah of the Taghut and the wilayah of Satan is just such a thing. This is why the verse of the Qur'an says: And We made them leaders (a'immah) who call to the Fire. There exist leaders and chiefs who drag their followers and those under their command toward the Fire of Hell, drag them toward wretchedness. Another verse of the Qur'an says: Have you not regarded those who exchanged the bounty of God for ingratitude and settled their people in the abode of perdition — Hell, which they shall enter? And what an evil place of settlement! Have you not looked upon those people who were ungrateful for the bounty of their Lord? This bounty for which they were ungrateful — what was it? It could be anything. The bounty of power, which is a manifestation of the power of the Lord; worldly powers; the bounty of stewardship and administering the affairs of thousands of human beings; the bounty of having at one's disposal the capacities, thoughts, energies, and abundant powers of human beings — all of these are bounties; these are capitals that could have been a source of good for humanity. The human beings who came under the control of those people referred to in this verse — these human beings could have been great human beings, could have been the elite servants of God, could have reached the highest degrees of perfection; but these people were ungrateful for these bounties, did not put them to work in the way that they ought. Then the verse goes on to say: "wa ahallu qawmahum dar al-bawar" — and they too cast their own people into the abode of perdition; they drove their people and the people under their command into the realm of nonexistence, annihilation, and destruction. "Jahannama yaslawnaha" — and they drove them into Hell, into which they will be made to slide and be flung. "Wa bi'sa al-qarar" — and what an evil abode and place of settlement it is! This verse was recited by Musa ibn Ja'far, may God's blessings and peace be upon him, to Harun; he made Harun understand that "you are that very one who will cast your people and yourself into the worst dwelling place, into the most calamitous of resting-places." Musa ibn Ja'far recited this meaning to Harun explicitly. He asked: "Are we then unbelievers?" — meaning, "do we then not believe in God, in the Prophet, and in the religion?" The Imam, peace be upon him, in answer recited this verse so as to make him understand that the unbeliever is not only the one who says plainly and explicitly, "No, there is no God; no, the Qur'an is a lie," or "the Prophet, for instance, is a legend." This is one type of unbeliever — and it is the best kind, the one who states his position openly, so that a person knows him and properly arranges his own stance toward him. The worse unbeliever is the one who is ungrateful for these immense bounties at his disposal, who casts them into the wrong channel — who drags not only himself, but all the human beings under his command, into Hell. The wilayah of the Taghut is just such a thing. The one who lives under the wilayah of the Taghut has, in reality, as it were no will of his own. I do not say he is utterly devoid of will — now that we have interpreted the verse of the Qur'an, the explanation of the matter becomes clear in the Qur'an — but he is being carried off in the current of the flood. He wants to flail his arms and legs, he cannot. He wants to turn back from the road of Hell; he sees that everyone all around is moving toward Hell, and they drag him along with them. Those places where there is a large crowd — have you been there? Sometimes you want to go this way; the crowd carries you off against your will like a wisp of straw. He wants to be good, to live a good life, to live as a human being, to remain a Muslim and die a Muslim — he cannot; that is to say, the social current is dragging and carrying him off, carrying him off in such a way that he cannot even flail his arms and legs. And even if he does flail, he has accomplished nothing other than the waste of a certain amount of energy. Not only can he not stir his limbs — what is more painful is that sometimes he cannot even comprehend. These fish that they catch at sea — I do not know whether you have seen this or not. Sometimes thousands of fish are being dragged within a single net toward the shore; from out in the midst of the sea, from several kilometers out, this net is dragging them all forward, and they are unaware. If you were to say to that fish, "Where are you going?", it would think it was going toward some destination by its own choice; but in reality it has no choice; its destination is the very place that is the destination of that fisherman who owns the net. This invisible net of the ignorant order drags a human being along so, drags him so toward those directions in which the steerers of that net incline, that the person does not comprehend where he is going. Sometimes he even imagines that he is heading toward the abode of felicity and salvation — heedless of the fact that no, he is heading toward "Jahannama yaslawnaha wa bi'sa al-qarar." Well, this wilayah is the wilayah of the Taghut, the wilayah of Satan. This was the first clause of the two clauses out of which the question was composed. We said: Can one live within the wilayah of the Taghut and live as a Muslim? Can one? Now we have understood, in summary, what living within the wilayah of the Taghut means. And if we wish to understand it in detail too, we can turn back again to history. Look at how, in the time of the Banu Umayyah and the Banu 'Abbas, the world of Islam moved with such vitality. Look at what an immense wave of knowledge and learning arose within the Islamic society of that day. What great physicians appeared; what great translators appeared in that era of dearth of linguistic knowledge and of general world-knowledge — men who translated into Arabic the great works of the ancient cultures and disseminated them among the Muslims. In every field — history, hadith, the natural sciences, medicine, astronomy, and even the beautiful and delicate arts — the Muslims of that day became among the most outstanding exemplars; is that not so? It went so far that even now, when a man like "Gustave Le Bon" the Frenchman, or some other writer and orientalist whose eye is dazzled only by these very outward appearances, looks back, he regards the second, third, and fourth Islamic centuries as the centuries of Islam's radiance. "Adam Mez" wrote a book called The Civilization of Islam in the Fourth Islamic Century; he conducts a remarkable lament over this civilization, which in his view is immense. He describes a great civilization in the fourth Islamic century. A French orientalist, a European orientalist, in general, when he looks back at those third, fourth, and second Islamic centuries, his eyes are still dazzled. Why is this? It is because of this: that strange activities, energies, and vitalities issued in that day from the Islamic society. But I ask you: did all this vitality and activity that was carried out in that day ultimately turn out to the benefit of the Islamic society and of humanity? I ask you. Ten centuries are passing from that era. We have no fanaticism toward that era. Vis-a-vis the non-Muslim world we can say, "Yes" — it was the world of Islam that brought those universities into being, it was the world of Islam that constructed that philosophy, it was the world of Islam that did such and such in medicine and the natural sciences. But, between ourselves, in all truth and fairness: did all that power and energy turn out to be in the right place, at the right time, and to the benefit of humanity and of the Islamic society? After ten centuries, what does the Islamic society have of that legacy? And why does it not have it? Why does it not have it? Why has that scholarly and cultural wealth not remained for us? Why is it that we, as a society that ten centuries ago possessed all that radiance, today do not shine in the world and make no display? Why? Is it not because all that vitality and activity — though it was a human activity — was beneath the signet-ring of the Taghut? As the poet said: That signet of Solomon I would not take at any price, Upon which from time to time there rests the hand of Ahriman. It was these Ahrimans (demons) who toyed with the Islamic society. If they did speak, if they translated, it was for the sake of writing in the translation, "In the reign of His Excellency So-and-so the umpteenth Abbasid caliph, Mansur or Harun or Ma'mun" — in order to raise up their own names. If, instead of all this activity in the natural sciences, mathematics, astronomy, literature, jurisprudence, recitation, and the rest, they had permitted the 'Alawi government to take charge, had permitted Imam Sadiq to take charge — had they allowed Imam Sadiq to take in hand the vitalities and energies — then even if, scientifically and from the standpoint of literature and of those matters that the world today preens and boasts about, they had fallen back a hundred years, it would still have been to the benefit of humanity. Humanity would have grown, Islam would have blossomed, energies and capacities would have been put to work along the right path. Of what use is it that they translate books, that they bring medicine and scientific progress to the utmost degree, but from the standpoint of morality and of social ethics they are so weak that their class discord is still to be counted among the legends of history? Exactly like the filthy, disgraceful civilization of our own contemporary world. The great world powers preen over their scientific discoveries, preen over their mind-boggling inventions, raise the cocked corner of their cap of pride to the very sun — "We discovered such-and-such a drug, we produced such-and-such a formula, we accomplished such-and-such a feat." This is from the scientific standpoint; but from the human and moral standpoint, even now, to this very day, they are living in the eras of thousands of years of pre-history. Even now, fabulous riches stand alongside fabulous hungers and poverties; even now there exists the enjoyment by a very small one percent in the world of privileges that exist at the expense of the millions of starving human beings in the deprived countries. They preen over this — and this is exactly the same condition as that great Islamic civilization in the second, third, and fourth centuries; it is the very same matter; in that day too it was just so. Vast scientific progress, but aristocratic excess and indulgence and heedlessness of virtues, of human qualities, and of authenticities; class discord in its severest form, deadly hungers in the face of deadly satieties — in that day too these were evident and to be seen. On account of what were these miseries? Why was it that the Islamic society of that day, with all its scientific vitality and activity, could not be a flower in the garden of virtues and human qualities? Why? Even now, when we range over the history of the second and third Islamic centuries, those whose names we can recall together with honor and pride, those whose names we can deliver to the world's high stations on the list of the honor-creating men of the world, are those who fought severely against that very civilized order. There is Mu'alla ibn Khunays, whom they hang in the marketplace and kill; there is Yahya ibn Umm Tawil, whose hands and feet they cut off and whose tongue they sever; there is Muhammad ibn Abi 'Umayr, to whom they administer a hundred lashes; there is Yahya ibn Zayd, whom they kill at the age of eighteen in the mountains of Khurasan; there is Zayd ibn 'Ali, whose corpse they keep on the gibbet for four years. Those whose names we today can deliver with pride to the list of the honor-creating figures of the world of humanity are these men — and these, on that day, had no connection whatsoever with that splendid civilization that Mr. Gustave Le Bon recalls and names; rather, they were the very opposite of that civilization. So you see that when the wilayah of the Taghut and of Satan holds sway over a society, over human beings, and holds the reins of their affairs in its hand, their energies are set to work, their capacities are set flowing — but in what manner? In the manner in which they have been set to work today in the civilized world, and in the manner in which they were set to work in the world of Islam ten centuries, eleven centuries ago. In the manner that, by the logic and authentic values and the human standards and measures, is not worth a copper penny — this is the wilayah of the Taghut. So then, within the wilayah of the Taghut, can one live as a Muslim? What does living as a Muslim mean, sir? Living as a Muslim means that all the resources, energies, powers, strengths, and capacities of a human being be wholly and without reserve at the disposal of God. Everything of theirs: their wealth at the disposal of God, their lives at the disposal of God, their daily activity and movement at the disposal of God, their night's sleep at the disposal of God, their thought and reflection at the disposal of God. Can you give an example of this? Yes. We have examples both at the level of societies, in the form of a community and a civic order, and we have examples in groups; among the rebellious groups that came out of the Taghuti systems and fled and made hijrah toward God — there we have examples. The first — like the society of Medina, in the lifetime of the Prophet. In the lifetime of the Prophet, the society of Medina was a society of servants of God; it was a Muslim society. There, every step you took was in the way of God. There, even its Jew and its Christian, if he lived under the command of Islam, his life was an Islamic life. The Jew under the dhimmah too, the Christian under the protection of Islam too — in the Islamic society they move along the path of Islam. From the standpoint of personal acts, he is a Jew; but from the standpoint of being a member of society, he is a Muslim. Far more a Muslim than that Muslim who lives within an ignorant order. In the time of the Prophet, money in the way of God, the sword in the way of God, the tongue in the way of God, thought and reflection in the way of God, every task of which a human being is capable was in the way of God; the affections and sentiments in the way of God; this is for a society. In the time of the Commander of the Faithful too, it was more or less the same way, because the Commander of the Faithful, may God's blessings be upon him, was, from the standpoint of being a divine ruler and the wali of God, no different from the Prophet; but he was the heir of a bad society. He was the heir of disarrays, the heir of disorders; and even the Prophet himself, had he been in the place of the Commander of the Faithful and come twenty-five years later, would certainly have faced the very same difficulties as the Commander of the Faithful. This is in communities. And as for groups: the group of the Shi'ah around the Imams, peace be upon them, throughout history. The month of Ramadan has come to an end, and we have not reached a detailed discussion of the Imamate; otherwise, in continuation of the discussion of wilayah, I would have discussed the Imamate. Then, had I been able to conduct this discussion, I would have told you what kind of a unit the Shi'ah were in the time of the Imams. We would have shown what the Imam's, peace be upon him, relations and dealings with the Shi'ah were, and what the Shi'ah's relations and dealings with the society surrounding them were; this would have become clear. For now I will mention it in summary. The Shi'ah, outwardly, lived within the Taghuti system, but inwardly they moved precisely in the direction opposed to the Taghuti system. Like that very small group who were with Husayn ibn 'Ali, may God's blessings and peace be upon him, at Karbala. These had truly cleft the flood and come against the very direction in which the flood was steering them. So, then, in history we have certain examples — both in society and in groups. The ordinary individual, though, is another matter. As a rule he cannot be a Muslim while living within such a society as I described earlier — the Taghuti society. He cannot place his whole being, his resources, his energies, all his powers and capacities, under the command of God. Such a thing is impossible. If a person lives within a Taghuti environment and a Taghuti system, some fraction of his being a Muslim is, after all, in the way of the Taghut; some portion of his life is, after all, in servitude to the Taghut; he cannot be one hundred percent a servant of God. A noble hadith has been related in al-Kafi in several wordings. The book Usul al-Kafi, which is among the most reliable and most ancient of Shi'i books, has related this hadith in several phrasings; the one that I shall recite is one of those several phrasings. The gentlemen can refer to al-Kafi, the Kitab al-Hujjah; the title of its chapter, apparently, is this: Bab man dana Allah 'azza wa jalla bi-ghayri imamin min Allah (the chapter on whoever serves God while under a leader who is not from God). It says, on the authority of the Imam, peace be upon him, and the Imam on the authority of God, that God Most High has said: A saying is related: I shall surely punish every flock (ra'iyyah) in Islam that gave its allegiance (danat bi-wilayah) to an unjust leader (imam ja'ir) who is not from God, even if the flock was, in its own deeds, godfearing and pious; and I shall surely pardon every flock in Islam that gave its allegiance to a just leader from God, even if the flock was, in itself, wrongdoing and evildoing. A remarkable hadith, this. This hadith says that those people who live under the wilayah of the wali of God are people of salvation, even if in personal and private affairs they sometimes have shortcomings, failings, and sins too; and those people who live under the wilayah of Satan and the Taghut are people of wretchedness and torment, even if in personal affairs, in private deeds, they are people of good works and good deeds too. This is very remarkable. Of course, I have said that there are several phrasings, and all the phrasings yield this very same meaning. The hadith is in Usul al-Kafi. Just now I did not refer to it — it seems to me, since I am usually scrupulous about looking at the chains of transmission of the hadiths, I think its chain was a good chain too. Some time ago I saw it; just now I do not recall. I always used to liken this hadith — I would say it is as though you boarded a car bound for a certain definite point, say, intending to reach Nishapur. If this car is heading toward Nishapur, you will certainly reach the goal. If this car, instead of going toward Nishapur, is going, say, toward Sarakhs or toward Quchan — well, it is certain that you will not reach the goal. Take the car that is going toward Nishapur and brings you to the goal. If the people in it associate with one another with courtesy, kindness, and human manners — so much the better. And if they do not — in the end they still reach Nishapur, they reach the goal. Even though along the way they did a little evil, those evils will of course have their punishments, their effects, their consequences, and the people are compelled to bear them; but they reach the goal. Now the contrary case: the car that is supposed to bring you to Nishapur is going to the point opposite Nishapur. Suppose all the individuals in this car behave toward one another with courtesy, with refinement, with respect, deal with one another with good cheer — yet they see that the car, instead of going to Nishapur, is heading toward Quchan, and in the face of this they show no reaction whatsoever. These are very good people, very kind to one another. But will they reach the goal or not? It is obvious — no. In the first example, the driver was a trustworthy driver, a driver who knew the road — he was "imamin min Allah" (a leader from God) — he brought them to the goal, even though they were of bad character: "wa in kanat al-ra'iyyatu fi a'maliha zalimatan musi'atan" (even if the flock was, in its deeds, wrongdoing and evildoing). In the second example, the driver was not a driver who knew the road; he was not a trustworthy driver; he was a passion-worshipping driver, drunk, he had lost the road, he had business in Sarakhs and Quchan, he had given precedence to his own want over the wish of the people, he was heading there; these will certainly not reach the goal — even though inside the car the people were very kind to one another, very warm, very good-natured: "wa in kanat al-ra'iyyatu fi a'maliha barratan taqiyyatan" (even if the flock was, in its deeds, righteous and godfearing) — but in the end, "la-u'adhdhibanna" (I shall surely punish), they will fall into the torment of God, they will not reach the goal. Therefore, in a society administered by the wilayah of the Taghut — like that very car steered by the driving of an untrustworthy man who does not know the road — human beings will not reach the goal and cannot remain Muslims. What are they to do? What are they to do? Here the verse of the Qur'an gives the answer. The verse of the Qur'an gives the answer to this "what are they to do"; it says: Indeed, those whom the angels take in death while they were wronging themselves… Those whose souls the angels seize while these wretches have been wronging themselves; those people who wronged their own souls, their own future, their own everything, and are now dying — the angels of God, the agents of the Lord, are seizing their souls. "Qalu" — the angels say to them — "fima kuntum" — "In what condition were you? Where were you?" A person might imagine that the angel of heaven says, when it sees this man's condition so wretched, "Wherever were you living? Why is your condition like this?" Picture the surgeon who comes to operate on a patient and sees that his condition is very bad — very lamentable, despair-inducing. He asks the same thing. I draw this analogy: that the angels, out of the wretchedness of this poor man's state, out of the badness of his soul, out of the misery and torment that await him, are astonished, and say to him, "Wherever were you living, you poor wretch? Where were you that you wronged yourselves so, and are now departing this world, departing this world as a wrongdoer against your own soul?" "Qalu fima kuntum" — "Where were you? How were you?" In answer they say — "qalu," they say — "kunna mustad'afina fi l-ard": "We, in the earth, among the people where we were living, were among the oppressed and downtrodden (mustad'afin); we were part of the will-less mass." The mustad'afin are that group within a society in whose hands the control of the society does not lie; these are the downtrodden. In the society's course and in its going, in its movement, in its repose, in its orientation, in its activity, they have no say. As I said yesterday, it goes wherever the pullers of the rope desire. So they go, the poor wretches, having no say of their own as to where to go and what to do. Imagine a handful of small elementary-school children, first grade — and not even at the age of seven, for seven-year-old children today have their eyes and ears far more open than this — imagine a four- or five-year-old child placed in a school, a maktab, like the maktabs of old. I recall: when we used to come out of the maktab toward home, in a group, we did not even understand at all where we were going. Children do not pay attention to what is where. A monitor, say — some older child with a stick — "Go this way, go that way, don't go under a car," or "Do go under the car!" — sometimes he even wishes that this would happen (laughter from the audience) — they do not at all pay attention to where they are going; suddenly they find they are in their own house, say; they find they are in the house of some other student, say. Now if this monitor takes a fancy to lead them around the street a little, they find they are at such-and-such a place, say. The mustad'afin of the earth are those who, within a society, have no news of the goings-on of the society. They do not know what is where; they do not understand where they are going. Where they will end up, who is carrying them there, how one might keep from going, and — now that we have not gone — what we must do next: they understand none of it at all, they pay no attention at all. Just so, they have hung their heads down, like — with all due distinction, with all due distinction, with all due distinction — the millstone horse. The horse, with all due distinction, of course (laughter from the audience). They have blindfolded its eyes; it keeps pacing, keeps walking. It just keeps going, going, going; it goes round, goes round, goes round. If this animal were capable of understanding anything, at dusk it would imagine to itself that "by now we must be around Paris and thereabouts, we have come such a long way" (laughter from the audience). Then, when they uncover its eye, it sees it is the very same place where it was at first dawn. It does not at all know where it has gone; it does not understand where it is going while it is moving. The mustad'afin in a society are these — the majority, the uninformed mass of the people. Of course, in societies other than those administered by a sound system — not those societies that set a value on the jewel of humanity; not those societies that hold a dignity for the human being and for the human will; not that society whose leader is the Prophet, of whom, although he is the Prophet, the Qur'an says: And consult them in the affair. — even though he is the Prophet, even though he has no need to consult the people, he is nonetheless commanded to consult the people, to hold them dear, to deem them great, to give them personality. Not these societies — such a society does not have such a mass; but in those societies administered by an individualistic system, by a tyrannical system, by an ignorant system and the like, the majority of the people are mustad'afin. They say: "kunna mustad'afina fi l-ard" — "We were among the mustad'afin." They dragged us along so, carried us off, flung us down, trampled us, befouled us, and we did not understand; and now we are dying too. This is the excuse and answer of the mustad'afin. See what the angels say to them now. "Qalu kunna mustad'afina fi l-ard" — they say, "We were oppressed in the earth; we were among the weak, the overpowered, the will-less, the powerless." The angels reply. See — it becomes clear that the logic of the angels is exactly equal to the reasonable, intelligible human logic; the human intellect too says this very thing. As that servant of God said seven or eight hundred years ago: Set not your heart upon any one beloved, nor upon any one land, For land and sea are wide, and human beings are many. Sa'di's view too was one with the view of these angels. The angels of the Lord say — "qalu," they say — "a-lam takun ardu Allahi wasi'atan fa-tuhajiru fiha": "Why, man, you were oppressed there — but was the earth of the Lord confined to that one place? Was the whole world summed up in that one society in which you were living in a downtrodden way? Was the land of God not spread out, that you might go forth from this prison, go to a point of freedom? — to a point where you could worship God, to a point where you could put your energies to work along the right path, to a point where you would not be downtrodden? Was there no such place in the world?" "Qalu a-lam takun ardu Allahi wasi'atan" — "Was the earth of God not broad and wide?" "fa-tuhajiru fiha" — "that you might make hijrah in the earth of God and go to another place?" They have no answer left to give. What can they say, the poor wretches — it is well known that a sound argument has no rejoinder. This is why the Qur'an, regarding the outcome and end of these wretches, speaks thus: "fa-ula'ika" — those mustad'afin, those whose power and will were in the hands of the Taghuts, who were carrying them off to Hell — "fa-ula'ika ma'wahum jahannamu wa sa'at masiran": those, then — "their abode" — where is their dwelling-place? — "Hell, and what an evil journey's end" and final destination it is for a human being. This too is the end of the affair. Of course, there is an exception. Not everyone is able to make hijrah; not everyone is able to rescue themselves from those bonds of the ignorant system. A certain number are incapable; a certain number are old; a certain number are children; a certain number are women for whom the possibility of this undertaking does not exist. Hence these are excepted: "illa l-mustad'afina" — except the oppressed and downtrodden, "mina l-rijali wa-l-nisa'i wa-l-wildani" — among the men, women, and children — those weak and incapable ones who, "la yastati'una hilatan" — who have no recourse, of whom no undertaking is possible, "wa la yahtaduna sabilan" — they find no way toward the region of light, toward the region of Islam and the worship of God; they find no way, they can do nothing — "fa-ula'ika," then, these who can do nothing, "'asa Allahu an ya'fuwa 'anhum" — it is to be hoped that God will pardon them. See, these are the very words of the Qur'an: it is to be hoped that God Most High will pardon them; this is how their case stands. "Wa kana Allahu 'afuwwan ghafuran" — and God is ever Pardoning, possessed of forgiveness. Then, so that those to whom the address of hijrah is directed should not feel, should not imagine, that hijrah will be a source of wretchedness and loss for them — "How will it turn out? Can we? Can we not? Will we reach some place, or not?" — in answer it says: "wa man yuhajir fi sabili Allah" — that one who makes hijrah in the way of God — "yajid fi l-ardi muraghaman kathiran wa sa'atan" — finds in the earth a vast field of movement and a spacious land. He sees, "What a flight one can make in the world! What a heart's-content soaring of wing one can do in the Islamic society! Until now our wing and our flight, when we soared very high, reached only to the ceiling of the cage. What horizons there are, how vast! In Mecca, the poor wretch prayed his prayer by force; if he showed any keenness in the Masjid al-Haram he prayed a two-rak'ah prayer and then took a thorough beating into the bargain. The utmost of being a Muslim was this, no more than this. Then, when he made hijrah, when he came to the free land, to the free air, to the Islamic society, beneath the wilayah of God and of the Messenger of God, he saw, 'What a place this is! Here they vie with one another toward good works (yatasabaquna ila l-khayrat); here, by the verse of the Qur'an and by piety and worship, the rank of individuals is distinguished and made known. Whoever moves more for God, worships more, strives more, performs jihad more, gives more in charity — he is the more honored in this society.'" Yesterday, if they had found out that one had given a single dirham in the way of God in Mecca, they would have heated the iron skewer red-hot and burned him with fire under torture. When you come and make hijrah in the way of God toward the city of the Messenger (Madinat al-Rasul), O Muslim of the early era of Islam, then you see what a field of movement it is, what a place for flight it is, how a human being can soar his wing to his heart's content. "Wa man yuhajir fi sabili Allah" — whoever makes hijrah in the way of God — "yajid fi l-ard" — that is, toward the divine and Islamic society — finds in the earth, in the way of God, "muraghaman kathiran wa sa'atan" — a vast field of movement, a place of abundant flight, and a spaciousness, an opening-up, a breadth. Now, if you moved in the way of God from Mecca, from the abode of unbelief (dar al-kufr) toward the abode of emigration (dar al-hijrah); and along the way God took your soul, you died — how is it here? They say, "Then your wage and reward is with God, because you did your own part. The movement that it was incumbent upon you to perform issued from you." Going to the desert road is better than sitting idle; For though I do not attain my desire, I strive to the measure of my capacity. And Islam wants this. Islam wants every person, to the measure of his own ability — the amount that he can, and is able and capable of — to move in the way of God. Whoever goes forth from his house as an emigrant to God and His Messenger… — that one who goes forth from his house, while he is making hijrah toward God and His Messenger — "thumma yudrikhu l-mawt" — then death overtakes him along the way — "faqad waqa'a ajruhu 'ala Allah" — then his reward has assuredly fallen due upon God and is upon the responsibility of God — "wa kana Allahu ghafuran rahiman" — and God is Forgiving, possessed of mercy. Note this point: since today is the last day of the discussion of recitation and our Qur'anic study, this topic remains roughly half-finished. Let me state this point: hijrah from the abode of unbelief, from the wilayah of other-than-God, from the wilayah of Satan and the Taghut — to where? To the abode of emigration (dar al-hijrah), the abode of faith (dar al-iman), beneath the wilayah of God, beneath the wilayah of the imam; beneath the wilayah of the Prophet and the divine wali one must make hijrah — this is hijrah. Now, if such a region did not exist in the world, what is to be done? Must one remain in the abode of unbelief? Or must one set about creating an abode of emigration? The Prophet himself, too, was among the emigrants, was he not? The Prophet too made hijrah; but before the Prophet made hijrah, an abode of emigration practically did not exist; the Prophet, by his own hijrah, created the abode of emigration. Sometimes it becomes necessary that a group of human beings, by their own hijrah, inaugurate the starting-point of hijrah, found the divine and Islamic society, bring it into being, create the abode of emigration; then the believers make hijrah to that place. The upshot of the matter — this is the substance of the discussion concerning hijrah.