• Table of contents of the book

He refers to the issue of Jabr and Ikhtiyar; predestination and free-will. This is a very important discussion in Islam and other religious traditions: whether we are free or our actions are created in us – they are pre-destined.
Then he talks about the issue of Adl, the issue of hosn o qobh. (That we had in kalam; and inshallah we discuss later). He refers to the issue of mustaqelaat-e-aqliya. He talks about the way Islamic kalaam, science of kalaam, has influence Islamic philosophy and talks about intellectual approach of the Shia. These are all topics that needs lots of discussion but it’s just quick in point in muqaddameh. He talks about the Shia approach in fiqh which would not accept qiyaas. Then he has a discussion, why the issue of justice has become very important for Muslims? And then he refers to the discussion in kalaam about the purpose in Allah’s action.

• Different perspectives about jabr, adl, and ekhtiyar

We had discussion whether God’s actions have purpose. You know some persons said that they don’t have purpose because if you say God’s actions have purpose, then he becomes needy. But we said no, he has purpose because he is wise, but the purpose is not to benefit from – it is to benefit others. So, this is also something that has been discussed by Muslim theologians and there have been different positions, therefore motekalemeen and Muslim philosophers, Muslim thinkers, have been classified according to the position they have taken according to the position they have taken according the issue of jabr, adl, and ekhtiyar you know and these types of things. For example mo’tazelites and shia are known as adliyah; the people of justice. Because they give lots of significance to the issue of divine justice, but asha’irah are the opposite. Although they don’t deny divine justice but the way they define it is not giving any significance to justice. Some people tried to give more significance to tawheed and saying that everything is created by god and they meant by this that we have no role; no cause other than God. Even fire does not burn. So, they said everything is an act of God, but then the problem is that why people are blamed if they do something wrong? Why Quran blames Zalameen for example? On the other hand some people try to give significance to the issue of justice, but then they delegated everything to human beings in their voluntary actions. Then for they limited the role of God – this is a problem.

• The issue of justice in Quran and Hadith

Ayatullah Mutahari has a discussion, Why so much emphasis on the issue of justice and relevant related issues in early centuries of Islam onwards? He says, in my understanding, the root is the Quran itself. The Quran inspired this discussion because Quran refers a lot to the issue of ‘adland dhulum. For example, Quran says the whole creation is based on balance

وَالسَّمَاءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ الْمِيزَانَ

“Allah raised the sky and set up the scale and balance.”
Hadith from Rasul Allah says:

بالعدل قامت السماوات والأرض

“All the skies and the Earth, stand up because of justice. “
Of course justice here, has a special meaning. It means like balance. All the Messengers have come to help people achieve social justice.

لَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلَنَا بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ وَأَنزَلْنَا مَعَهُمُ الْكِتَابَ وَالْمِيزَانَ لِيَقُومَ النَّاسُ بِالْقِسْطِ

All the Messengers have come, they have been equipped with manifest signs, with book, with a scale, so that people rise and establish social justice.
So, Quran inspired Muslims to think actively about the issue of justice and injustice, and social justice and equity. Even when it comes to Prophet Ibrahim (as), and the issue of Imamah, Allah says:

لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِي الظَّالِمِينَ

So, those who receive Divine position of Imamah, should be free from dhulum, from any injustice. Or for example, Quran says, a moral person is the one who has justice, righteousness. You know sometimes the Quran when it talks about witnesses:

وَأَشْهِدُوا ذَوَيْ عَدْلٍ مِّنكُمْ

Surah Talaq Verse 3: “Ask two people who have justice to be a witness and bring them.”
People who have justice, you know we say ‘adl, ذَوَيْ عَدْلٍ(posesser of justice).
So, Quran talks about justice as fundamental value. And he says, most of the verses in the Quran about justice are about social justice, not only about personal justice. Qist and social justice.

• Three major characteristics for Shia Islam

I don’t know if you have read or listened to my lectures about characteristics of Shia Islam; where I say that there are three major characteristics for Shia islam which you can find everywhere present.
One is rationality, one is search for justice, one is spirituality. These three together make wonders. Not separately. When you have these three together, you are balanced. And you will never become extremist, you will never fail to grow in every aspect. These three are very important; I have some lectures about this you can find for example, the lecture given in Geneva recently to a group from Czech. Any aspect Ayatullah Mutahari is not talking about ‘adl, I think it’s all these three. Whether it is in discussion about tawheed, or nubuwwaah, about aqaid, about akhlaaq, about economy, about politics. Anything in Islam, according to the reading and version that we understand from Quran and the teachings of Ahlul Bayt, shows and reflects rationality, spirituality and search for justice. He talks about justice but all the three are there. This is very important thing.

• Human justice

When we talk about human justice, normally we have a kind of common understanding. When we say someone is just, we mean he observes the rights of people, he treats them with respect, he doesn’t harm them, if he has power he treats people equally, he will not discriminate against some people. If he’s responsible to distribute something, he would distribute them fairly. Not necessarily equally but fairly. And when, he’s dealing with dhaalim and madhloom, a just person, what should he do? When you are judging between dhaalim and madhloom, what should you do? Here is a bit, I think ironic. If you are judging between dhaalimand madhloom, you should not take any side. If you are judging, you should be impartial but you should always help madhloom to be able to receive his right.

كونا للظالم خصما و للمظلوم عونا

As Amir al Mu’mineen said. But not by doing dhulum to dhalimm. You have to be objective and just even with respect to dhaalim. You cannot help haaq by using means of baatil, that was very important discussion. So, a person who is just is someone that has these characteristics and a person who is unjust is opposite. So, for us to understand what does it mean for a human to be just or unjust is somehow clear.

• To use the concept of justice for God

But what about God? Can we use justice and injustice in the same sense for God? For example, can we say justice is a perfection and God should have justice? Or maybe someone say we cannot use justice for God at all, why? Because no one has any rights over God. Everything is given by God so we cannot talk about God observing rights of people or not. No one has any ownership, any right, that would conflict with God’s ownership. Between us human beings, we can have conflict, because someone may own something and I want to take it unjustly. But when it comes to relation between us and God, we don’t own anything with respect to God so that he doesn’t own. No one has any right over God.
The other issue is, is there anything we can use for God better than the concept of justice. So that it would not be just something practical or moral, something existential. Something like for example, hikmah, something like knowledge that we use for God. Can we find something like that? What is interesting, in the Quran you don’t find, at least I don’t remember, any ayah that says God is ‘adil. God is not doing dhulum or God is qaaiman bil qist, but you don’t find anywhere in the Quran that says God is ‘adil. Because Quran is very accurate and the way Quran uses these terms is very precise.‘adil is in the Quran, but not for God. For example,

إِنَّ اللَّـهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ
اعْدِلُوا هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَىٰ

But you don’t find any verse which says:

إن الله عادل

It is true, but still He’s ‘adil because His mercy is not conflicting with His justice. It’s a very good question because sometimes you use justice in the sense that giving someone what he deserves not more, not less. If you mean justice in this way, yes, then treating us with favour is different from justice. So sometimes, for example, say:

إلهنا عاملنا بفضلك و لا تعاملنا بعدلك

Treat us with your favour, not with your justice. What do we mean by don’t treat us with your justice? We don’t mean treat us with dhulum. We mean by this, don’t give us what we deserve, give us more than what we deserve. Definitely, you’re not going to do dhulum, but this is not enough for us that you don’t do dhulum. We are not worried about dhulum, we are worried about being given what we deserve. So, we have to be hoping that God would treat us with favour. But again, favour is ‘adil, it’s not dhulum. So, if you mean by ‘adil,giving exactly what the other party deserves, not more not less, yes, then ‘adilis different from fadhil. But if you mean by ‘adl not doing dhulum, so if I give you extra, this is ‘adl. So, when you use ‘adl in contrast to fadhil, then‘adl here means what? To give what that person deserves, not more, not less. Because you are using in contrast to fadhil,it’s not using in contrast do dhulum. I’m not saying he’s not described as being just, no, he’s described as being just; but he’s not described by using a derivative of‘adl. Otherwise we had qaaiman bil qist. So, the Quran says God does not do dhulumand the Quran says that God treats us with ‘adl; but with different terms.

• The different between ahlul hadith and akhbari?

When we say ahlul hadith, we don’t mean people who respect hadiths or people who narrate hadiths. ahlul hadith are not even mutakallim, these are the people who are not in favour of kalam, let alone philosophy. They said just take the hadith of Quran literally and don’t discuss that much. Just repeat.
Akhbari are different, ahlul hadith are sunni scholars. Like Ahmed ibn Hanbil and these type of people. Akhbari is a Shia movement that actually they are not against kalam, they have very strong interest in kalam. Maybe they are not very interested in philosophy but they are very interested in kalam. And they say that we cannot understand zawahir al Quran by ourselves. We should refer to the hadith to understand zawahir al Quran. They are not against ‘aql or kalam.

• Different approaches about justice

When it comes to issue of justice and things like this, Ahlul hadith say you don’t need to discuss. Just accept whatever is mentioned in the Quran and say the same thing. They don’t have such a concern about this. And Ayatollah Motahari says this idea is not acceptable and he says we should engage in this discussion, and reflect and try to analyze.
Mutakallimeen are divided in two major groups when it comes to this issue. Asharites and Shiites and Mutazallites. So, Asharites on one side and Shiites and Mutazallites on the other side. Asharites don’t deny justice of God, but the way they interpret justice is as if they don’t believe in justice. Because they say justice does not have any meaning prior to religion, prior to God. Whatever God says or does is just. So there’s nothing to introduce as standard for justice. We say whatever God does is just, they also say whatever God does is just but we mean different things. We say, when Quran says:

إِنَّ اللَّـهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ

It means, ‘adlis something that can be understood without command. Ya’moroo bil ‘adl means you can understand what is ‘adl and then God says you must observe ‘adl. If ‘adl means what is commanded by God then inAllaha Ya’morro bil ‘adl means God commands to do what he commands. It’s not making any sense.
Then he says, Asharites tried, they had good intention, they tried to somehow say that God is unique in creation. Everything is created by God, every action of God, He decides about everything, and He does everything. But they did it in a radical way, by leaving no road for human being and his free will. And then indirectly, they made God responsible for any crime that takes place in the world. So they tried to protect God’s unity, but then they brought all the blame to God. Iblees wanted to use this logic, say:

رَبِّ بِمَا أَغْوَيْتَنِي

He wanted to say “you have deceived me” but this is not acceptable.
Then he refers to the fourth approach. The fourth is hukamah, and he means by hukamah philosophy, Muslim philosophy. They accept tawhid afaali, everything that happens is an action of God. But they don’t deny other role, but we are also agent because there is hierarchy. God is the creator but we are also responsible. God is above all and He is the creator of everything.

لا مؤثر في الوجود إلا الله

We believe in tawhid afaali, but at the same time, we don’t deny our role. We are also part of this process. And also, muslim philosophers accept that God is not doing dhulum, but another understanding of this issue. Their approach has similarities with Shi’ites and Mutazzalites approach, but there are also differences.
So I’m not saying that anything in this chain has free will. And those who have free will, some of them have choice, some of them have no choice. Angels have free will but not choice. According to Muslim philosophers: Angels have ikhtiyaar but not intikhaab; because they only choose what is good. So they are free, but they don’t choose between good and bad. So, some agents have free will, no choice. Some have free will and choice and selection. Some have no free will like instruments that we use, okay? But what is important that there is a hierarchy and they are all involved. So when we say, God is the creator we cannot say, fire has no role. As Asharites say, fire also has a role, although fire has no free will. But fire has role! We don’t deny causality, because Asharites deny causality.
We say, no, causality is there but we have different types of causes. Okay, according to the philosophers, the issue of Divine Justice is much more than what mutakallimeen talk about; it’s more than a practical or moral issue. Then he says there is another group that also they are not mutakallimor philosopher or they’re not like Muslim philosophers, they are empirical philosophers, empresses. People who deny anything on this can be verified by empirical data, like you have to see, you have to touch. So, these people also when it comes to this issue then they have problem because they have to find out what is the solution for this issue of you know for example, this evil that exists in the world. Because their understanding of God is based on the data, empirical data. If there is conflict, they have problem. But we don’t have problem because we prove the existence of God rationally. And even if there is a case that we don’t understand why God permitted this happen, we say: I don’t know, but I have already proved intellectually that God is knowledgeable and powerful and benevolent. So even if I don’t understand the wisdom behind something, then I don’t have a problem.
So, anyway, these are different approaches and he says we have to first start with defining ‘adl.

وَالسَّمَاءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ الْمِيزَانَ

He raised the heaven high and set up the balance, [55:7]
According to the commentator exegesis of the Qur’an, wada’a al-mizan, here which comes after raising the sky, means there is a measure, there is a balance in this world and in the creation. We are not talking about law and ethics, we are talking about the creation of this world.
Ayatollah Mutahhari says this meaning of adl is not what we are concerned with. It’s not related to the issue of divine justice because this is about the creation as a whole and he says some people have tried to answer to the questions about justice, problems, catastrophes, wars, this type of things, but he’s saying that there is a system and this system is balanced and we should have holistic approach. He says but those people who are not happy they say that to have a system which works properly is okay, but this does not mean that each part would not receive injustice or discrimination. They say as a system we have to do something. So he says this meaning of justice is not the main issue about the problem of evil in the world and I think personally that maybe this is not exactly the problem, but I think actually this helps a lot in understanding the answer because no one should consider himself or herself separate from the system. We cannot expect everything to be perfect for me, maybe for example you have a farm and right now you think it shouldn’t rain. But maybe for millions of people, now they need to have rain. You should adjust your expectations according to the system.

• Second definition of justice; equality and having no discrimination

The second meaning is justice in the sense of equality and having no discrimination. And he says here we need to reflect on what we mean by equality. Do you mean to treat everyone equally? This is not justice. For example to give the same mark to all students. This is not justice. But people who deserve the same, treat them the same. This is good. No equality in an absolute way is needed, what is important is to treat equally those who are similar in their deserving. As I always say, you should treat equals equally and treat unequals unequally.

• Third definition of justice; observing rights of individuals

Third, justice in sense of observing rights of individuals and giving everyone his or her due right. He says this type of justice has two foundations. Rights of people upon each other which is based on priorities. Right, comes from priorities that some people have with respect to something. For example if a person produces something, he/she has priority over it. So you can say that he/she has a right on this issue that other people should observe. The second thing is, this is very important, human beings are made in the way that they use some concepts which we call i’tibari. Here we mean by i’tibari something that we initiate for some maslaha, there are notions that are our creation, man-made. In the sense that for our interest, we assume them, we initiate them. For example, ownership. Is there anything in the world that, for example scientists (physicists or chemists) can show us that this is ownership? We don’t have such a thing as ownership, yes with respect to Allah (SWT), that is real ownership that is existential ownership. Socially we use these concepts so that we can plan human relations. So Ayatollah Mutahhari says we initiate some notions based on some interests, and then members of the society should observe them. We say this is owned by this.
Ayatollah Mutahhari says this is the meaning of justice that every person understands, it is opposite to zulm which means to observe the rights and priorities which are created based on this type of notion. So according to this sense of justice and injustice, we have to consider priorities, and these priorities although may not be necessarily real, they are outcomes of something in human creation that humanity, for the sake of needs, meeting their need for practical reasons are able to suppose, to initiate some types of relations. But he says, this is very important, he says in this type of things, we cannot involve Allah (SWT), because this type of priority which is the result of these imaginations and initiation of relations, we say this person has more priority, this is the property of that person. But Allah (SWT) is greater than all, and no one can limit His priority by saying that I have more priority. All of us really belong to Him. So this is then showing that why in this sense, no one can complain to Allah that you have been unjust with me.

• Forth definition of justice; to observe the capacities

The fourth meaning of justice is to observe the capacities. In this world we have different beings with different capacities. Human beings also have different capacities, even one person can have different capacities in different times. What is important is that Allah (SWT) according to philosophers is fayad ‘ala itlaq, meaning He is absolutely gracious, without any limit. This is a very important point.

• The meaning of generosity in Allah and human beings

One of the things that makes your mind understand things differently is this issue. Allah (SWT) is not like a generous person like in human beings. In human beings when you have a generous person, this person would give you not because of what you deserve. A generous person gives you what you don’t deserve, for example you have not done anything for him but he gives you, or you have done something for him but he gives you more. But a generous person would not give you as much as you can receive. In the case of Allah (SWT) it is different. Allah (SWT) is absolutely gracious, in the sense that not only He gives you what you don’t deserve, not only He gives you more than what you deserve, He gives you as much as you can take. So He considers your capacity as something that He should fill.

• Question 2: Creation and death

The second issue is why is that when some beings are created, they then cease to exist? Or why is there death? (For the people who think death is ceasing to exist). The reason this question is asked is that some people think that as long as you have not created, they don’t have any right over you. But if you created, then you cannot take their existence away from them.

• Question 3: Limitations and problems

The other question is about limitations and problems, such as ignorance, weakness, illness, poverty. Why do we have such things in the world?

• Question 4: Calamities

The other question is why are there calamities? There are microbes, germs, or injustice, etc. Why is there temptation from nafs ‘amara? These are the types of problems. And then Ayotallah Mutahari says this question can be turned into a kind of theological and philosophical question to say why are things that are not useful created? If God is Just and Wise, only good things should be created.

• Question 5: Two creators

The question of having two creators in the world: one for creating good things and one for creating bad things. There have been people that had the idea that God has only created good things and bad things are created by the devil, for example. So this quickly leads to that question. If we cannot explain properly why we have such problems in the world, some people may say ok, we have another creator or some people may even deny the existence of God.

• Divine Justice: a principle of faith

Then Ayotallah Mutahari has a discussion about why divine justice has been taken as one of the principles of religion or mathhab? He mentions two reasons.
One reason is a very important point about this issue of justice. The issue of divine justice and problems that exist in the world is something that scholars, lay people, and everyone talks about, because people face these problems of illness, death, injustice, etc. People see these problems and if they cannot understand why, then they will lose their faith or it will be affected. So this is why we have put ‘adl ilahi (divine justice) as one of the principles. But in addition to this, there is a historical reason. In early Islam, a debate started about divine justice and that was not because some Muslims didn’t accept divine justice. It was because the way Muslims understood divine justice was different. It was about understanding goodness and badness. Whether goodness and badness are essential or not, whether they are rational or religious? So this debate was then a debate about free will and determinism, predestination. So these questions led to some people, like Asharites, saying that God is Just because justice is what he does or asks us to do. This doesn’t help you to understand anything about what types of things he does or says. Whatever He says is good; whatever He does is good. But the Shiites and Mu’tezilites had the idea that whatever He says or does is good or just, but not by definition. It’s a real issue. It’s an objective issue. He considers standards, requirements, criteria for goodness and badness, and all of his commands are in compliance with those standards. Even if you have no religion, no faith, you should be able to understand that justice is better than injustice, this was a very important debate which still continues, and even existed in Christianity, Judaism, and among Greek philosophers. So, one historical reason for Shia stressing on divine justice as one of the principles is because they wanted to take a position, a stance in this debate.

• Justice and wisdom

Among the attributes of God, we have chosen justice as a principle. But there is a very close connection between justice and hikmah. Some of the questions actually might relate to hikmah, not justice. Actually people cannot question that much the justice of God in the theological sense, because they don’t have any right over God. It’s like God giving from his own money to people. If someone from his own pocket gives money to people, he doesn’t need to observe equality or any criteria, if it’s a matter of justice. But then it’s a matter of wisdom, that as a wise person, why did you not give someone and gave the person next to him? So these two qualities adl and hikmah – justice and wisdom are very closely connected. Adl, in one definition, as we said, is to give everyone and everything what they deserve. But wisdom is to create the best, the most beautiful, the most endurable thing. This is wisdom, because a wise person is the one who does things for a reason.

• Why should a wise person do the best?

So one answer is that the best is always one. But if you want not to have the best, then this is an endless question. It can be the second, third, fourth. There is no preference. The best is like a straight line between two points: there is only one. But there can be many lines that are not straight. So for the wise to do something which is not the best needs extra reason than doing. But doing the best needs just reason for doing. In addition to this, we can say, if wise is perfect, that’s one thing, and if wise is imperfect, that’s another thing. When wise is perfect, not only does wisdom get into the decision, but also perfection gets into the decision. So what he does should reflect his wisdom and his perfection. Therefore, it has to the best, the perfect choice. A choice that for people, like us, who have limited power, time, resources, knowledge, we don’t need to do the best necessarily. But for Allah SWT to do things in the best way or second best way or third best way doesn’t cost anything. It’s not that it’s more difficult, takes more of his time, or reduces his treasures. There is no explanation why someone who can do the best as easy as doing the second best, why he should do the second or the third? So it’s not only a matter of wisdom, but wisdom with absolute knowledge, power, and resources that Allah SWT has.

• The best possible system

He has created the best system. In the physical, material world, we cannot have perfect beings. We cannot have perfect situations. There can be limitations, shortages, conflicts, and competition. Imagine if all people of the world wanted to live in the most beautiful place in the world. That’s not possible. Because in this world not only what you do counts, what others do also counts. In heaven, you would not be affected by bad people or careless behaviour of other people. So this is the best system, but remember this is the best possible system, and there is no way for Allah to make the second best, third best, or just a good system. Remember, this is the best possible system. It’s the best possible world and at the same time, it’s the best for our purpose. Because actually, all the limits in this world are good for us, because we want situations for testing people. If we were not affected by each other’s behaviour, then how would we be tested? So Allah SWT created us in the physical, material world and gave us free will, and this is actually what we need.

• Divine Wisdom and Divine Knowledge

Wisdom of God is one of the results of the Knowledge of God and one of the results of God’s quality of mureediya – God’s Willing. Because God is mureed and karih – He likes certain things and doesn’t like certain things. He decides to do certain things and He doesn’t decide. It’s not that everything that He can do He would do. God is not like a robot or machine that whatever it can do it would do it. God can do many, many things and can stop doing many, many things. Among the endless choices that He has, He chooses some of them, wills them, and does them. So the wisdom of God is directly related to His knowledge plus his irada (will). So what He knows to be the best, He decides and He wills to do it. But Ayotallah Mutahari says the justice of God is not directly related to His Knowledge and His Will. It is one of the qualities of action and not a quality of essence.

• Thanawiyat – Dualism

One of the meanings of dualism is that we have two types of creation, as if there is a partition. One god who created all the good things and one god who created the bad things. For example, according to some interpretations, it is said that Zoroastrians had this idea and maybe still do, of course many say today we are monotheists. Islamically, we can prove that they are ahlulkitab and they had a book from God and a Prophet, so in origin, they are definitely monotheistic. Anyway, there was this idea that there is ahooramazda and ahriman. Ahooramazda is god who creates good things, beautiful things. Ahriman is the devil that creates bad things. And they wanted, in this way, to defend god by saying god is not doing bad things; bad things are done by someone else. So this is the issue of thanawiyat. Islam totally stopped any kind of shirk. There were even people who believed in a kind of dualism, but for example, they said we should only worship one God, but there are two creators. So they didn’t have tawhid in khaliqiya but they had tawhid in ‘iboodiya. But there were people who said no, we should also worship the bad god, otherwise he gets angry with us.

• Good and evil in the world

In Islam, we had tawhid in all dimensions: tawhid fil that, fil sifaat, fil af’al, fil khaliqiya, fil ‘iboodiya, in every aspect. He quotes this beautiful ayah in the Quran from Surat An’am that in the discussion about noor we mentioned this, in the lectures about noor.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّـهِ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ الظُّلُمَاتِ وَالنُّورَ

All praise belongs to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light. [6:1]
He has created the skies and the earth, and he has created light and darkness. It’s not that light is created by someone and darkness by someone else. Of course, light is created and darkness is not created. And this is why it says ja’ala and not khalaqa – made darkness and light, because darkness is lack of light. He makes a very beautiful point here. He says not only did Islam put an end to the idea that bad things are created by someone else, Islam also clarified for people that nothing bad is created; it’s relative.

قَالَ رَبُّنَا الَّذِي أَعْطَىٰ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلْقَهُ ثُمَّ هَدَىٰ

He said, ‘Our Lord is He who gave everything its creation and then guided it.’ [20:50]
When Pharoah asked Musa and Haroon,

قَالَ فَمَن رَّبُّكُمَا يَا مُوسَىٰ

He said, ‘Who is your Lord, Moses?’ [20:49]
The answer was our Lord is the One that gave everything, kula shay’ – this includes everything, not just good things, but everything. Yes, we believe everything is good, that’s another issue. But we don’t accept that God created some of the things. God created everything and if you have a problem in understanding why bad things are there, then you have to correct your understanding about what is bad.

In the world of contingency, there is nothing more beautiful than what actually exists. So among different possible worlds that God could have created, this is the best. And then he continues with this discussion and to what Hafiz who is a very well-known Iranian poet says. He says, nothing mistaken or bad is created, but this is because he had the vision to see everything beautiful, because it’s a matter of understanding. If you don’t have good understanding, you would see even good things bad. If you have understanding, even bad things that people think are bad, you see them as good.

• The meaning of Lady Zaynab’s saying about the event of Karbala

What she says, of course we are not 100% sure that we understand it, but what I think the Lady meant was I am not distracted by little bad things and bad people who are there. I am able to look at the whole picture and it is beautiful. Indeed, maybe we can say Karbala is the most beautiful picture in the world. I don’t think you can find any place more beautiful than Karbala, because this is where the greatest virtues that can normally remain hidden emerged. If you want to show the beauties of Imam Hussain (AS), it’s not enough to look at Imam Hussain (AS) when he is praying or fasting or going for hajj. They are very beautiful, but nothing like Karbala showed those hidden virtues of Imam Hussain (AS). Because when you challenge someone, then that’s the time to know him. So Karbala was beautiful, and indeed, it was maybe the most beautiful thing that Lady Zainab (AS) saw in her life; where you could see so many pure servants of Allah (SWT); where you could see these lovers of Allah (SWT) all together in one place, that they didn’t show any sign of weakness, impurity, attachment to dunya, ego; where you could see love for Allah (SWT) to the maximum. So she saw something very beautiful. You could say didn’t Lady Zainab (AS) see those ugly people? Of course, she saw those ugly people, but they were not able to divert her attention from understanding the whole picture. That’s the main thing.

• How do we see the beauty of Allah in this universe?

To see the beauty of Allah in this universe you have to do few things of course. One is you have to remove any veil between you and God. Our sins, our attachment to dunya, these become like veils that you cannot see that image on the surface. It’s like for example if someone has closed his eyes, or has put some lenses which make him not able to see. So if you want to really see the beauty of God, you should stop enjoying pseudo beauties.
So one is that we have to remove bad things, bad characteristics from us. And the other thing is we have to work a lot on correcting our understanding. I think this is why tafakkur is very important. We have to improve our vision, our understanding. Do not let bits and pieces of information or news or difficulties be the main factors of shaping your worldly life. Instead of trying to make a world view from these little things, try to make a world view starting from Allah SWT coming down. Normally from problems we want to go high. Let us go from the heaven to the earth, and have a bird’s eye on the earth. Then you can see better everything but you can also see there are lots of other opportunities, lots of other beautiful places.

• What is the beauty of Allah?

The inner beauty of Allah is reflected in the creation. But this is only even the veil. So this world reflects the beauty of Allah but in a sense also covers the beauty of Allah. Like for example, a women behind the veil. A woman behind the veil, you cannot see the beauty of that woman but still the veil can be beautiful. If we start with understanding the beauty of the world then inshaAllah we can go beyond this. What Allah SWT has is much more than dunya and even more than heaven. First you see the beauty of dunya then you see the beauty of heaven inshaAllah, but then there are things even higher than heaven. What is important is not to satisfy yourself with little beauties, with little good things. Just carry on.

• What does Satan (Shaytan) do?

The next question is about Shaytan. Some people have thought Satan in Islam is like Ahreeman in Zoroastrianism. But he says this is wrong. Shaytan has no role in creation. This is very important. Yes Satan is a reality. And can do something. But in the sense that he is a creator, no. Like us, we are real. We can bring some changes in creation but not in the sense of creating. Shaytan is a creature of Allah SWT and his role is in tashree’ not taqwin, not generation. His role comes in the realm of the laws and morals. And what Shaytan can do is to try to misguide. To try to misguide. Cannot misguide you if you don’t want. It’s not that Shaytan has the power to control. Shaytan can bring temptations, suggestions. Can make things look beautiful in your eyes to deceive you. Like a person who wants to sell you something which is not good, sometimes they deceive you by describing things that are not there. Shaytan can deceive you by showing things which are not good. Or showing things which are bad good. But Shaytan cannot manipulate your mind or heart and take them away from your control. So Ayatullah Mutahhari refers to some verses of the Quran. For example, in Surah Nahl, verses 99 and 100

إِنَّهُ لَيسَ لَهُ سُلطانٌ عَلَى الَّذينَ آمَنوا وَعَلىٰ رَبِّهِم يَتَوَكَّلونَ

Shaytan has no sovereignty, no control over the people who believe and trust their Lord.

إِنَّما سُلطانُهُ عَلَى الَّذينَ يَتَوَلَّونَهُ وَالَّذينَ هُم بِهِ مُشرِكونَ

His authority, sovereignty, control is over those who follow him.
So what is important is to remember that we have free will. In order to exercise our free will, and this power that we have, we need to have at least two choices- good and bad for example. Or sometimes it can be good and better. But maybe there are encouragements coming from party of good. Maybe there are temptations coming from party of bad. But you choose. So Shaytan has no role independent from God like Ahreeman has in some religious tradition. Even, it’s a very important point, even Shaytan has no role in creation under Allah. So not only at the level of Allah SWT, he’s not even at the level of angels.

• Satan’s power

So Shaytan, Satan, by no means is for example in the world opposite to Allah SWT. Unfortunately sometimes people make mistake. They exaggerate the role of Shaytan, the power of Shaytan for different reasons. Sometimes because of ignorance. Sometimes, maybe unknowingly, we are exaggerating in the power of Shaytan to say that if we are following Shaytan and we are losing, it is because Shaytan is very powerful. But the reality is Shaytan is not very powerful.

إِنَّ كَيدَ الشَّيطانِ كانَ ضَعيفًا

Shaytan can make plans. Even his plans are weak We are unfortunately not understanding. Shaytan is very clear enemy, His plans are weak. And he is introduced to us by Allah SWT. But still we listen to him. So that’s the problem with us. Otherwise Shaytan is a very marginal, very marginal figure. And there are maybe some human beings that can be more destructive than Shaytan. But these human beings die. The thing is Shaytan continues. Otherwise, some time in a generation maybe you find human beings who are more misguiding and more destructive. So we must not make this mistake that think that Shaytan is responsible for creation of bad things. Everything created in this world is created by Allah SWT and everything which is created is good. But sometimes something which is good can be relatively bad. Something which is good can relatively be bad. For example, rain is good but for a person who doesn’t have shelter, this rain is bad.

• The creation of Satan

The creation of Shaytan is not bad. Because first of all even Shaytan is free. It’s not that Shaytan is created to be Shaytan. Shaytan could be a good person. As you know he was worshipping Allah SWT. He is a jinn. He has free will. So there is nothing wrong in the creation of Shaytan. The thing is Shaytan like some human beings, he used his free will against the will of Allah SWT and decided to misguide people. But even this misguidance of Shaytan can be now part of a bigger picture because we want to have free will. We want to give great reward to people so Shaytan is making this competition, a serious competition. We need to have some kind of battle. So presence of Shaytan first of all was not supposed to be for misguidance but even now that he’s misguiding, it’s not damaging the plan. Actually now that Shaytan is misguiding, then momineen can benefit from this. Because now by resisting against Shaytan you can gain more credit. So it has become a serious battle and you can gain more credit.
Shaytan is going to use with his people any possibility to get into people’s lives, into people’s progeny, money, activities. But, as I said he has no control. And Shaytan also himself said that he’s going to do this. He said in Surah A’araf verse 16.

قالَ فَبِما أَغوَيتَني لَأَقعُدَنَّ لَهُم صِراطَكَ المُستَقيمَ

Again here Shaytan makes a bad claim. He says to God, because you have deceived me, a’uzubillah. Shaytan wants to attribute his mistake to God. God didn’t deceive him. He says because you deceived me, I am going to sit on their way next to sirat al mustaqeem so that I don’t let anyone take this straight path.

ثُمَّ لَآتِيَنَّهُم مِن بَينِ أَيديهِم وَمِن خَلفِهِم وَعَن أَيمانِهِم وَعَن شَمائِلِهِم ۖ وَلا تَجِدُ أَكثَرَهُم شاكِرينَ

From before, behind, right, left, I am going to come and you would not find most of them grateful.
It means that. It means that one of the, if not the main, at least one of the main aims of Shaytan is to stop us being grateful. Gratefulness is very important. And Shaytan doesn’t want us to be grateful. As we said in akhlaq, gratefulness is one of the keys for success.
So there is a kind of role that Shaytan is playing. Not because Allah wanted him to do this but because Allah SWT gave Shaytan free will. Now Shaytan is misusing his free will. He wants to deceive people, but Allah makes the plan that even Shaytan now is working in that plan. As we said about makaru wa makarallahu wa huwal khayral maakireen.

• Haqq and baatil

But for those who want to follow the path of Allah SWT, the path of guidance, assistance is much more than misguidance. I think many of us think that we have equal force in good side and bad side or some people think ninety percent is bad and ten percent is good, or worse. Some people who are fair then say haqq and baatil are fifty-fifty. But I think haqq and baatil are not fifty-fifty. Haqq is ninety nine, baatil is one. Because haqq is Allah SWT and the attraction of His light and the encouragement of His guidance and all the prophets and imams. Baatil is Shaytan. Can Shaytan be even one percent of power of God or attraction of God? So if we make mistakes it’s not because haqq is not clear or nauzubillah Allah’s hands are closed, He cannot do anything, Shaytan is running the world. It’s not like that. The world is full of good things, full of light, encouragement, guidance, good lessons, wisdom. Just we have to find it. Do not let the attraction of baatil, which is on the surface, preoccupy your mind. A little bit wait then you would see there are lots of positive things. It’s like smoke. Baatil is smoke. This smoke doesn’t let you see the beauties. We have to remove the smoke then everything is beautiful.

• Two groups of people

There are people who have not experienced love for God. We have many people that consciously don’t believe in God. Maybe unconsciously they believe in God. But consciously they say we don’t believe in God and they don’t have experience loving for God which is very difficult. We don’t understand how much they suffer. Even if they are smiling, well off, they suffer because they have no sense of belonging. They are orphan. An orphan is not the one who has no father or mother; a real orphan is the one who does not know if he had a father/ mother. These people are even worse. They say we don’t have Creator. We are here by chance. They have no sense of belonging. They are really a stranger in this world.
2. We have another problem in the world: there are people who believe in God, have religion, are religious, but love for God is not genuine. They think they love God but the love for God is possessive. They want to own God. God is mine – not yours! The maximum they can accept is that people from my sect, they also can have the same God; but not people from other sects, or religions. They want to have monopoly over God.
Ayatullah Mutahhari is somehow referring to the first part. The people who have no faith – no love for God – they are really suffering. No one is responsible, except themselves or people who have not given them proper education, orientation. They suffer. So, he says, these people because they see no aim, purpose in creation, then for them to have aim and purpose is not very much meaningful. They see no justice in the world. For them to observe justice is not meaningful or can be exception. They don’t see any match between moral virtues, creation and the world.

• Optimism of divine philosophers and believers

Mystics, divine philosophers, we mean those who have divine philosophy, believers, they don’t have pessimism. For example, he refers to Mawlawi, Rumi. He says, for Rumi human beings are the source, focal point for pleasure and happiness, and joy. Not you just can be happy – no more than that. You are the source, mind for happiness, provided that you benefit and utilize it. According to Rumi, there is no grief in the world that you cannot change it into joy if you know how to do it, you can change grief into joy, sorrow into pleasure. He says whether my beloved is showing favour to me or he is showing unhappiness, whether he is talking to me with joy or doesn’t’ talk to me – I am loving him. We have in a munajat

إلهي لك العتبى حتى ترضى

Ilahi laka utba hatta tardha
O Allah as much as You want to blame me, but please don’t disconnect with me. Blame me till you become happy with me, but don’t say I don’t want you. That’s the worst thing. So, he says, it’s strange I love two opposite things. So in life, whether you have problems, or you don’t have problems, it shouldn’t make a difference. Because you have Allah (swt), these are only on the surface. It is not about irfan, tassawuf only, this is about imaan. Whoever has imaan has this condition. He says who lack imaan, leads to lack of balance. Lack of balance produces pain. Imaan has the power of transforming pain into pleasure, grief into joy, and then he says, those who believe when problems happen to them, they say,

إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ‎

There are two important things, and then after this nothing is important. We are from God, Alhamdulillah, we are going back to Him, Alhamdulillah. Anything happens in between is not important. We are from Him, not from a bad place, and we are going back to Him. That’s the main thing, just we have to make sure how we go back to Him.

• The relation between morality and faith

Then, he says William James, who is an American psychologist, thinker, in his book about religions and morality, he says, the people who have no faith, and try to be moral, for them, moral responsibilities are dry, spiritless, it is like burden. If you don’t have faith, you can be moral, but it’s very difficult. why I should be moral? I say even people who are not religious can be moral, if they understand the honor that Allah (swt) has put in human beings, it cannot be very difficult, but relatively it’s more difficult than people who have faith. Because when you have faith, you do things with joy, out of love.

• How to solve the problem of evil

He says the issue of best system, we talked about nizam ahsan, the best possible creation, the issue of existence of evil in the world, important question in both Eastern and Western philosophy have addressed this issue, he says, according to my knowledge, no sufficient answer has been given by western philosophers, but he says Muslim philosophers have analyzed this question very well, have actually shed light on some important secrets when they answered these question.
He says there are different ways to answer this question about Divine Justice. Those who have faith, whether Muslim, Christians, Jews, they have one general answer; they say: because we know for sure, and we have for example Muslims bring arguments of existence of God, maybe some people don’t believe in arguments, they say faith is a matter of taking risks. In Islam, we say, we bring arguments, prove that God exists, God has Power, Knowledge, He is Benevolent, therefore they say, we trust God’s choices, creation; and even if we don’t know what the reason behind every single decree is, decision of God, we accept it. This is a general answer, that believers say, without needing going into all cases and details, he says: these people when they don’t understand something, they say okay, our knowledge is not enough, and we cannot explain. He says this is good, we are not saying it is bad; but we can go even further. We don’t need to stop here and say: we don’t understand everything, we trust God. This is about normal believers, who are not scholars. Asharites, also don’t talk about this because for them everything God does is Just. And don’t have to worry about it. It is sorted out by definition; even if he sends good people to hell, that’s okay. For them, it’s not an issue. Then he says, but, other theologians, they are not satisfied with this, they try and understand the secrets of creation: the benefits, advantages, they try to explain; but he says the best approach of hukama-e-Ilahi, Divine Philosophers, theosophers, these are the people that they try to explain things with lim’i approach. Let me explain to you this terminology. You had it in mantiq. Burhan-e-lim / Burhane-inni. Burhane lim is when from cause you move towards the effect, for example you say because there is fire, there is smoke. Burhane inni from ma’lul to illa, you say, because there is smoke, there is fire. Or from ma’lul to another ma’lul. Burhane lim’ you know the cause, you use the cause as reason, to go towards effect. That’s the best type of effect. You know the cause, and the cause is the reason. So, divine philosophers, Godly philosophers they use ‘limmi approach. What does it mean? He says, it’s more than this book, he makes a few lines: To understand Allah (swt) which is The Cause and then say Allah is Beautiful and this world is the shadow / manifestation of Allah – shadow of beautiful is beautiful. From cause you go to effect. Allah (swt) is absolutely Beautiful, Jameel Alal Itlaaq. Unconditional. From every aspect. He has created this world. Creation of the most Beautiful, is most beautiful of creation. Also, Muslim philosophers have in addition to this analyzed shuroor – problems, evil in the world. They say, these are negational, these are Adami. Wujood is always good. Shar is like shadow. Its relative. We will talk about it. Shar is accidental. What is created is good. This good which is created can be for me, bad. This is not essense of it. Then, he says we don’t talk that much about this, but I think even this much is helpful.

• General answer with respect to discrimination

When it comes to ijmaali, they say: We know that God is Aleem- Knowledgeable, Hakeem – Wise, Ghani – Rich, Kaamil – Perfect,Aadil – Just, Jawaad -Generous. When you know that God is Knowledgeable, Perfect, Powerful, Just, Wise, and you don’t understand what the wisdom is, reason behind this creation or that creation, you would not lose your faith in God because you didn’t understand the point behind this creation. If you have managed to prove existence of God; and you have managed to prove that God has these qualities, and in some cases, you don’t understand, you say, this is because limit of your knowledge. Wisdom, and Justice so if we don’t understand why there are such differences, we say okay we don’t understand, but this would not stop our faith. In other words, no one is proving for us that God is not Just, Wise, Knowledgeable. They are just raising questions, after already establishing faith in Him would not stop us. General answer is good, but first you should improve your understanding; secondly, you can help people whose understanding of God comes from physical, empirical data, and to see counter examples can make them lose their faith, so it’s good to go further.

• Objection: general answer causes underestimating Allah’s power

Some people have said, we have an issue with this general answer in a very fundamental way: you say there is maslaha, there is a kind of interest in the way that God has created and runs the world. God’s Wisdom requires Him to observe maslaha. The question is this: some people say: It seems you are comparing God to human beings, who have limited power, they have to follow procedures. For example: you say, God has found to our maslaha, interest, to give us free will. The result of free will if mother during pregnancy is not careful and takes some bad medicine may affect the child. And to give free will to people is maslaha. If God says, those mothers who are pregnant and they want to do something wrong, I would take away their freedom, maslaha would not work. So, these people say you are underestimating the Power of God. God could have created the whole world, and at the same time, and could have stopped harms coming. So why are you saying God has to observe maslaha. Maslahais for us, not for God. He is above everything. He can decide anyway that He wants. He does not have to follow any rules or regulations.

• Is there any purpose for God’s actions?

Some people say God’s action served purpose. Why? Because they thought that God is needy. We do something, because we want to benefit from it. God would not want to benefit from it. Therefore, God has no purpose. We said God has a purpose, He doesn’t things in vain; but His purpose is to benefit others, not benefit from. He has purpose, because He is Wise to benefit others. God’s actions have purpose, and He observes interests, the causal relations, and this would not contradict His High Position.

• Is system of the world essential or accidental?

We have a system in the world based on cause and effect. The question is, does God create these beings first, and then adds a system, relations to them, so that we could have thought, having the same thing, but different system, or the system of the world is the essential part of the world.
Ayatullah Mutahhari says no, this is mistake. Before we explain the creation, let’s refer to numbers, this is a very good example. How numbers are to be conceived. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. Is 5 something and its order something else? Is 5 something and to be after 4 and before 6 is something accidental? Can you say to God, no problem creates 5 but not before 6 and after 4? You laugh because you know, that this is part of mahiya, part of very notion of 5 has to be between 4 and 6.
Now let’s go to this world. Everything which is created in this world is like 5, like 6; it’s not that they are created then they are put in a position and then that position can change. Its’ not for example, you can make a place of cause and effect, different. You can reverse. You say we want to burn fire with wood. God can make. Its’ up to God to choose. We say this is like saying we have 5, but not after 4 or before 6.
Then he makes this philosophical claim: anything which is created with its own existence, it’s relations come. So, Allah (swt) creates every being and with the same act of creating them, He gives them their properties, characteristics, effect, relations. God has created a system, and God has created only once. This ayatthat we have been mentioning that

وَمَا أَمْرُنَا إِلَّا وَاحِدَةٌ

Wa ma amruna illa wahida
Our affair is not except, One.
How many things Allah (swt) created? He created only one thing. How many times? Only once. Allah swt is One and He has created only once. But that one thing that Allah created can be analyzed into billions and billions of things. They can expand over time and space till end of our lives.

• The meaning of difference (Tafawut) and discrimination (Tab’iz)

Then he moves on to the question of difference and discrimination, In Farsi we call tafawut and tab’iz for discrimination. We have tafawut, but no discrimination. Difference but no discrimination. He says, one way of explaining the difference is tafawut is in those that receive, tab’iz is coming from top. Tafawut is not coming from top.
For example, if two students have made the same progress, efforts, given the same answers to the questions, you give one of them A, the other B. This is tab’iz. They show the same progress, performance, why you give one A, and the other one B. This is tab’iz. But if one student has answered all the questions, the other most of the questions, you give one A, the other one B. this is not tab’iz. This is not discrimination. This is difference.

• God as a manager of all affairs through intermediators

He runs and manages affairs from the sky to the earth. But also He says

فَالْمُدَبِّرَاتِ أَمْرًا
(79:5)

that the angels also do this. Because it is an existential relation, and whatever angels do can be attributed to Allah (SWT). Or for example about taking life

اللَّـهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا

Allah takes the souls at the time of their death [39:42]
or

قُلْ يَتَوَفَّاكُم مَّلَكُ الْمَوْتِ

Say, ‘You will be taken away by the angel of death [32:11]
You can attribute [death] to Allah, or Azrael, or angels of death who work under him. Or with respect to revelations, we can say

نَزَلَ بِهِ الرُّوحُ الْأَمِينُ ﴿١٩٣﴾ عَلَىٰ قَلْبِكَ

brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit * upon your heart [26:194]
Or

إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْقُرْآنَ

Indeed We have sent down to you the Quran in a gradual descent. [76:23]
which means Allah (SWT) is revealing. So it’s a relation which is real, existential, and whatever those who are lower do can be attributed to those who are higher. If there was no such system, then it would have meant that anything can be cause of anything. So you could have attributed the action of something to something else – this is not possible. Everything is fixed and everything has its own rule.

• God’ absolute knowledge about apostleship

Then he says that a common mistake is to think of Allah (SWT) like a human being and to think that decisions of Allah (SWT) are like human beings. You know one day for example a manager can come and change the positions of people. He says that this person who was just a simple employee, I will make him my deputy, and the deputy becomes a simple employee. These things can happen in our way of making decisions. But with respect to Allah (SWT), it is not like this.

اللَّـهُ أَعْلَمُ حَيْثُ يَجْعَلُ رِسَالَتَهُ

Allah knows best where to place His apostleship! [6:124]
But this is based on real differences – this is why He says “’a’lamu” He knows. It’s a matter of knowing the differences. If it was an arbitrary decision, he should not have said “Allahu ’a’lamu,” we should have said “Allah decides.” But it says “allahu ’a’lamu” – it means there is a difference. Who knows that difference best? Allah (SWT). He knows who is more qualified to become a messenger.
So, Ayatollah Mutahhari says, we cannot change the position of creatures based on our decisions or arbitrary decisions. Like, the position of numbers. Between beings of this world, there is a very essential and deep relation. And what Allah (SWT) says about angels

وَمَا مِنَّا إِلَّا لَهُ مَقَامٌ مَّعْلُومٌ

‘There is none among us but has a known place. [37:164]
He says this is true about all beings. All beings. For example to be a cat, to be a human being…, everything is fixed. It has a certain position or degree of perfection. So, this is the hierarchical system.

• A horizontal system

we also have a horizontal system. This horizontal system is about the condition in which everything comes into existence, of course at a certain position. So, how a human being comes into existence. For example [when] a child is born. You know, when we say “born,” this is not very accurate because a human being is not created at the time of birth. A human being is created when the soul is created, but for the sake of making it simple, we say a human being is born. When a human being is born, there is a hierarchical system that has functioned and finally the last/nearest/closest cause has given existence to this child. But, this child is not created in a vacuum. Why is this child created now and here? There is a horizontal also system. This horizontal system is a kind of net which is spread and everything will be given a chance to emerge at one point in a time and space. He says, sometimes we think things are not related to each other. If you had comprehensive information about what happens in the world and you can look at everything from a divine perspective, even lower than divine perspective. For example, from the perspective of aql fa’al, the active intellect, then you would see how everything is connected. Either directly or after some connections they are connected. Nothing happens in this world by chance. In philosophy we said we don’t have chance. We don’t have luck, accidents. Two people after some years, see each other on the street and they say by accident we met each other. But if you were aware of this person’s life and decisions and that person’s life and decisions you could have predicted that these are going to meet at this time. Ok. So there is a horizontal system according to which the history of the world take form and for every incident, space and time are fixed.

• Well connected and interwoven world

Then he says that no incident in this world is isolated. This world is not a world of isolated incidents or separate beings. This world is very well connected and interwoven. It is one unit.

مَا أَمْرُنَا إِلَّا وَاحِدَةٌ

and Our command is but a single [word], like the twinkling of an eye. [54:50]
So the principle of unity, real unity of the world is to be remembered. And this is something that Allah’s wisdom in creation has planned.
In philosophy, we have a famous rule. One of those things that it is good to remember.

كل حادث مسبوق بمادة و مدة

Hadith is occurence, incident, event. It is preceded by madah and muddah. Madah is the material, but in the philosophical sense is different from material from which you create something. Maddah means that subject which has the potentiality of receiving this. Ok. You remember we talked about qawah and fi’l. And insha’Allah we talk about it more in philosophy. Everything needs maddah. Everything in the natural/physical world, needs maddah who undertakes or accepts a form surah. Anything in this world before coming into existence has to be preceded by maddah, a matter that takes this, and time. You cannot bring something into physical world in vacuum or in isolation from other things. This is very important. So he says, when for example a fire happens why does this fire happen now? Why this fire happens in this place. There are other things that have defined where and when to have fire. Nothing is isolated. He says that after careful examination we realize that those events that happen at the same level, we are not talking about cause and effect, those things are connected. So they are giving a space to each other, they are creating a space for each other. A very simple example, if I was not here (teacher), you were not here (student). If you (student) were not here, I (teacher) was not here. If we were there but this for example room was not here, we were not here. So many things exist together and they actually create a space for each other at the same time they define a space and time for each other. Why we are here this time and this place. So if you just pick up one person and say we have Allah (swt) and this person explain why this person is now here. We cannot explain. We need to consider the system and all the conditions that were there for this person to come into existence.

• How could dua effect in this connected world?

There are many factors that lead to some conclusion or result. Without dua, you have maybe 100 factors and their overall interaction leads to this conclusion. When you bring dua, you bring a new factor. And this factor can change the balance. But you have to bring a new factor to change. You cannot do nothing and ask for change. Do you understand? So we don’t say that everything is fixed. No, we have free will, we can do dua, we can do sadaqah, silay-e-rahim. But what we want to say is that it’s all within a system. There is nothing by chance. If, in the same condition, you make dua, the result can be different. If you don’t make dua, the result can remain the same. And this is something that, if you learn, you can benefit in other cases. Because in Islam, there is nothing by chance. Everything is measured. Just, you need to learn the mechanism. How things work. But if things were not related to each other, if they were isolated, if they were happening by accident – then you could not generalize, you could not come with general patterns.

• Four principles of cause and effect

First, we have a general principle of cause and effect. Everything is created through cause and effect. You don’t have any effect without cause.
The second principle is necessity that comes to ma’lool from ‘illa. It’s not that ‘illa is there and mumkin is still possible to come or not to come. Even awlawiyah is not acceptable, preference. It has to be necessary. The third thing is that between ‘illa and ma’lool there must be some kind of conformity, they should match. It’s not that anything can be ‘illa for anything. There must be sinkhiyyah between ‘illa and ma’lool. The fourth principle is that the whole world finally goes back to the cause of the causes. One cause –‘illatul ‘ilal. So, if you accept all of these four principles, the result would be that all of the incidents of this world would be connected to each other.

• Al-sunan al-ilahiyyah/General Divine laws in the creation

Sunnah means law. Divine sunnah means divine law. Allah (SWT) explains in the Qur’an something that Ayatollah Mutahhari says is very similar to the idea of philosophers but in a more clear and precise way. And that is Allah (SWT) has some laws, and these laws never change. For example in surah ahzaab, verse 62 and surah fath verse 23,

سُنَّةَ اللَّـهِ الَّتِي قَدْ خَلَتْ مِن قَبْلُ ۖ وَلَن تَجِدَ لِسُنَّةِ اللَّـهِ تَبْدِيلًا

Allah (SWT) talks about finding no alteration or change in his sunnah, in his law.
One of the general laws of Allah (SWT) for running this world is

إِنَّ اللَّـهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ

This is one of the laws of history – Allah (SWT) would never change people’s affairs/conditions unless they change themselves. So you cannot dream of having a very good society without doing anything. Just say “Allah please improve of our condition. There is no guarantee that the situation remains for you always the same, if you don’t appreciate, you would lose.
Okay, so these laws of Allah (SWT) for running the world show that there is a system, and this system is very regular and very organized. Nothing happens by chance or accident. If you want success, there are ways/techniques for that. If you want dignity and honor for yourself, for your nation, for your community – you have to learn the way this world works and follow the norms. Of Course, because there are so many factors that are out of our control, you cannot be 100% sure that you are going to be successful. You have to put your trust in Allah (SWT), you have to ask Him for help, you have to do dua and tawassul, all of these things. But you cannot avoid the norms – there is no such norm in the world where you don’t do anything, you just do dua. We don’t have such a thing. But on the other hand, you cannot just rely on yourself and say “I don’t do dua because I have studied enough. I make dua only those days that I haven’t studied.” This is also wrong. You need to master wordly techniques for success, and at the same time have spiritual tools.

• Are there any exceptions in general laws?

• Dua as a part of qadha and qadar

Are these laws with exceptions or without? Are miracles exceptions for the laws or not? We say, no, no there are no exceptions and miracles are also no exceptions. When your knowledge is not comprehensive and you know only this much, if then something happens which is outside what you know you think this is an exception. For example, you know if you thought that only sun produces light, then if you see that in the night there is light, do you think that is a mo’jiza, or the exception or what has happened? But you didn’t know the laws of the nature. Light for you was only coming from sun, but there are many things that you didn’t know. In dua, Ayatullah Mutahhari says, that someone asked Rasulullah, that ‘if everything happens in this world is by ‘qadha’ and ‘qadar’, then what dua can do? But Rasulullah said: “Dua is part of qadha and qadar”. Dua is part of the system. If you make dua, qadha or qadar can change in your favor, if you don’t do dua, it can remain different. You think that only natural factors would determine the results. We say natural factors are important but also there are supernatural factors. There are ordinary and extraordinary factors but there is no exception to causality. It’s not that something happens without cause, something happens you know just by itself without any cause, no. When you have miracles you don’t escape causality. There’s a cause but the cause which was not known to you.

• The meaning of qadha and qadar

Qadah is not something which is predestined, whether you act properly or not properly it’s going to happen, no, you can change your situation.
In other words, qadar is like different path. There are different possibilities for you, each of them you choose, there is a result for it at the end. So qadar we said are those avenues that are measured and each of them would lead to a final situation which is qadha, you can choose. So you should not think that human freedom is ignored, when there is qadha and qadar. Qadha and qadar are after you decide to do something. Yes in the aqa’id if you remember I said there might be things that Allah has already made in his qadha, like for example, Imam e Zamana (as) is going to come, but even here as I told you still Allah (swt) would not force this, would wait for people to prepare for it freely. And also I explained for you the mechanisms of how Allah (swt), when HE really want something to happen in the particular time HE can do it in the way that people freely would help that happen.

• The reality of human role and the role of the supernatural factors

Ayatullah Mutahhari refers to this beautiful words from Surat al-Talaq and he says that this ayah has explained the reality of human role and also the role of the supernatural factors very well.

وَمَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًا

“whoever fears God, has taqwa, Allah would make for him a way out,”

‘yaj’al lahu makhraja’. It means that when you are facing challenges and difficulties and troubles, if you have taqwa there will be a way out, maybe more than one but at least one way out of this problem. One exit – makhraja [arabic]

وَيَرْزُقْهُ

And Allah will give him sustenance.

مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ

from where he may not expect.
If you have taqwa, Allah would give you rizq from where you don’t expect.

وَمَنْ يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ

(These are general rules.) Whoever puts his trust in God, God would be sufficient for him.

إِنَّ اللَّهَ بَالِغُ أَمْرِهِ

‘Allah SWT truly makes his affair reach the end, he can make his affair successful’. Balighu amrih..
HE is not someone that is weak, nauzubillah, and then he decides something but something else happens.

قَدْ جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدْرًا

But you must know that everything has a measure, nothing happens by chance or in bulk, everything is well measured. So this ayah explains few things. Some of them are these:
First this ayah explains that taqwa and tawakkul are two powerful tools. It’s important that for spiritual tools there is no limit in their power, the only thing that determines how much power you can get from tawakkul, or dua or tawassul, is your soul. So these ayah shows that taqwa and tawakkul have power and they can change your life but at the same time this ayah shows that there is a plan, there is measurement. This ayah also shows that the way your rizq comes, can be something you expect, and can be :

مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ

• Different discussions related to the issue of shurur

So we have to now discuss the issue of shurur. Ayatullah Mutahhari says philosophers have given a good answer to the issue of shurur, the bad things.
The first part of their answer we will explain inshallah but just to give you an idea in the beginning.
1. The first part of their answer involves explanation of the nature of shuroor.
○ What is the nature or reality of bad things?
○ Are bad things real? or they are negational – adami? For example, death is lack of life.
2. The second part of the answer of philosophers is:
○ Whether bad things are real or not real?
○ Can we separate good things from bad things? And we say part of the world is good, part of it is bad.
○ And the world as a whole is good or bad? or they are equal?
3. The third part is:
○ That bad things, whether they are real or not real?
○ And whether they can be separated from good things or not?
○ The question is: if something is bad is it absolutely bad and there is nothing good in it? or even those things that are bad, they can be relatively good? This is another issue that we will discuss.

• Is there dualism in existence?

So the first thing we want to discuss is now whether we have dualism in existence or not in this sense that we have khair and shar. Some people maybe with good intentions, they thought we should not make God responsible for bad things. God only creates good things but we also have bad things, bad things are created by another person. Because they wanted to keep God away from creating bad things. Ayatullah Mutahhari says for these people, God is like a good person who has good intentions
but cannot stop bad things happen. But Islam says, no, God is the only creator, the only source of existence. Anything that exists comes from God and HE is all-powerful, nothing goes out of HIS control, HE would not be defeated. So this is not a good solution to say God is okay because HE is not responsible for bad things. So we have to say, from one perspective we have good things and bad things, but from another perspective everything is good. Everything which is created by God, which means everything that exists is good, only good comes from God. But then, when these things which are created and which are good are compared with each other, then they can prove to be good for you or bad for you, but it doesn’t mean that they are bad as such, essentially, necessarily. And the whole system is good and beautiful.

• How can philosophers say everything is good while there is problems?

So how philosophers then try to explain this that everything is good and we know that you have problems. The first thing that they say is that shar adameest – means is non-existent shar, is negational. Some people say you say death is adami, but we see people dying and suffering in life.
So Ayatullah Mutahhari says, we are not denying that these things have real impact, but what we want to say is that what is created is like light, problems are like shadow, shadow is lack of light. Shadow is not something created. So life is created, absence of life is death. Death brings suffering, for example, pain. But death is lack of life. Yes, death by itself is another life and from that perspective is not bringing suffering. Death, illness, these are bad for us because these are lacking the other side which is created, which is positive. Of course this is part of the discussion but we would have also more discussions.Then he says, what is essentially bad is lacking life and when an animal, wild animal comes and kills someone because this animal has caused lack of life, you say this animal is bad. But this animal is not bad because this animal has been causing losing life and life is good. Then losing life is bad, then this animal that has caused losing life, is you say is bad. But imagine, if this animal was there and not killing you or killing your dear ones, was it bad? No. So creation of this animal is not bad, now you have lost something, then you say this is bad. So in the whole world, there is only one type of being and that is good. All the bad things are negational and they don’t exist. You are looking from the other side. Everything is created by God and everything is good but then internally we may have relations that would be painful or will be not be good for us. So this is one point.

• Shar as a relative issue

The other point that I have, I leave it for inshallah next session is that shar is nisbi – is a relative issue. For example, for a snake to have poison is good or bad. For the snake is good, for us if this snake bites us, this poison is bad. Even for us, it is not always bad because we can learn how to make medicine from it.
So something, for something can be good, for another thing, it can be bad. Even death which is disliked, sometimes death can be good. Many criminals have died alhamdulillah, if they were alive, they could have made more problems. Or for example imagine if no-one was dying, how could we live because population and also you know looking after your grand grandparents, one is 1,000 years old, another is 1100 years old, so how can you do this. So there is nothing which is absolutely bad, means bad for everything and bad for everyone. It’s a relative. This is the second point to consider.

• sharr as a relative issue

So after understanding this distinction between these two types of qualities or properties now let’s go back to our issue. When we have something bad are they really bad? Or they are bad in a relative sense. A relational sense? He says we can have both. For example, when we say ignorance is bad ignorance is lack of knowledge and you don’t need to compare it with anything. But there are bad things that are known to be bad only when you compare. For example, when there is flood, you say floor is bad. Can you say flood is bad in the same sense that you say ignorance is bad? No flood in itself is not bad, unless you compare it. So we don’t have absolute bad, evil we in the world, everything in itself is good. But it might be bad when it is compared to something else. But how many types of existence do we have? Just one. And that is your existence for yourself. When it’s bad it’s bad for something else. But that is not the real thing that has been created. So in the hierarchy of beings, we have only one being for everything. And that is Wujood Ho le nafs-e, its existence for itself. Everything which is created is good. Because everything for itself is good. To be bad is a relative issue. Something might be bad for certain things and not bad for other things. But there is no absolute badness.

• Can we have a world without any problems?

He says, many philosophers have discussed this and he says in Islamic Philosophy we have very good discussion about this that the world is one related unit. One organ and every part has an organic relationship with each other. Everything is interconnected.
Allah SWT says,

وَمَا أَمْرُنَا إِلَّا وَاحِدَةٌ

“Our affair is not except one.”
So you should not think that Allah (SWT) has created billions of things separately and then have put them together and because these billions of things are put to together then we have problems. He could have created for example, less things and then after putting them together we don’t have problems. No this is one world very connected it has lots of cause and effect relations, lots of interaction, lots of encountering and it’s impossible to avoid the things that for some might be bad. In other words you cannot have this world in the way that for everyone and everything is good.
For example, you want to eat something. So your existence is bad for animals. Yeah? You eat fish. So what is the guilt of fish that you are eating it? Even if you are vegetarian you are eating vegetables. So if we want to have a world in which everything remains perfect and no one uses another thing and no one destroys another thing, it’s impossible. We cannot create a world only for you. Otherwise if you wanted to have everything in it’s order you should have every person separate. But then how can you survive without father, mother, children, friends, food, air, technology? You could not survive.

• Different position of everything as a part of a whole and as an individual

The other issue that he mentions is that when you consider something on its own, it may have some position that might be different when you consider it as part of a whole, a combination. For example, he says maybe if you consider two pieces of line. One is straight. One is curved. Maybe you think straight is better. But when these lines are used in a combination, maybe then curve is better.
So there is a difference between the position of the things when they are taken on their own and when they are taken as part of a system. And then he says, if there was no difference, no diversity, then the world was not possible to be a good world. And this is why when the Quran talks about difference between colors and tongues, languages, ethnicities, days and nights, Allah says these are signs.

وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ خَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافُ أَلْسِنَتِكُمْ وَأَلْوَانِكُمْ

And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. [30:22]
This diversity is good, and it’s a sign of God.
Then he says, ugliness exposes beauty. We need to have both beautiful and ugly things. This is one point. The other point is that if we had no ugly things, beauty would not make sense. So it’s existence of both beautiful things and ugly things that give to each of them meaning and you can distinguish with by contrast.

• Everything with its own creation and special capacity

But please pay attention to one very important point. We don’t want to say that everything was possible to be beautiful, and then God arbitrarily, or by drawing lots, said, ok, we make some of the beautiful, some of them ugly so that those which are beautiful, look beautiful. It’s not that they have the same capacity, the same condition, and we imposed these differences on them because we didn’t want to lose part of the design of the whole. Allah has not done this. Although we don’t have any right over Him, but His wisdom would not be compatible with denying some beings higher levels of perfection just in order to make some others shine or stand out. This world is the world that, whether it is vertically or horizontally, is necessary. Everything has to be as it is because Allah SWT in His generosity and graciousness is unlimited. Whatever we have is the maximum we could receive. Of course, for most of the beings, this is fixed by conditions, by environment, by their essence. In human beings, in addition to the environment, and conditions, and essence, their free will. Their free will decides how much they can take. But as far as Allah SWT is concerned, His grace is infinite. And everything has its own creation. Allah would not give my creation to you or your creation to me. What does it mean? It means that each of us has a capacity, and this capacity, as I said for other beings normally is fixed, for us is partly fixed by external factors, part is fixed by our own decisions, by our own free will. He fills your container. He fills your capacity. But because these capacities are different, then it has the benefit of also creating contrast.
So, we have to remember that Allah SWT has given every being its maximum perfection and beauty, as much as it was possible, but at the same time, because they have no similar capacity, differences are caused. And this is also good.

• The explanation of lady Zainab’s saying “ma ra-aytu illa jameela”

This is a very special statement because she didn’t just say, I saw beautiful things. If she had said raa aytu jameelun or raa aytu jamaalun, means despite all the problems, I was able to see beautiful things. This was easier to understand. It means that even in darkness, you can see light. Even in calamities, you can see some good things. So if she had just said, ‘I saw beautiful things,’ that was still great. That in such difficult time, that you have great tragedies, you can still see something beautiful. But she says something more. She says, ‘I didn’t see except beauty.’ And this is what I say, that she is actually challenging our understanding. She’s saying something that we have to struggle for years to really understand. What does it mean ma ra-aytu illa jameela? And I think, but maybe there are other explanation, I think this shows that how much she was focused, and how much she was attracted to Allah SWT, that nothing could divert her attention towards something else. So not only she was able to see good things, she was able not to see bad things. So this is not easy. This needs a life that is dedicated to remembrance of Allah- seeing positive things.

• No injustice in natural systems

The second discussion is, when you want to make legislation, should you prefer interests of individuals or interests of the society or state? These are two different things. Maybe in some countries, they prefer more individual side. And some people may try to balance. He mentioned this is just as an example to realize that, although the society is comprised of individuals, but individuals on their own and individuals in the society are different. And have different positions. Like we said, the curve and straight line.
Then he says, in natural systems, in the creation, not in legislations or man-made systems, nothing has been dealt with injustice just for the sake of the rest of the system. In societies, in human societies, this can happen- that sometimes they give preference to one side, and the others are ignored, overlooked, or dealt with dhulm. In the natural system, no dhulm is taking place. Differences are there, but not by dhulm. Differences are because of differences in their capacity. Yes, we human beings can do dhulmto each other, we can deprive each other from some good things, but the system, no. So this is about this discussion. And then he says something about good and bad coming together. For example, the ayat

إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا

For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. [94:5]
It doesn’t say, after hardship is ease. It says, with hardship comes ease. Means these two come together.

• The result of being patient when calamities

Allah (swt) says,

أُولَـٰئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةٌ

These are the people that receive salutations from Allah (swt) and mercy.
And you know those who receive salutations from Allah (swt), what happens to them? Those who receive salutations from Allah (swt) in Surah Ahzab (?) Allah (swt) says,
Allah takes them from darkness to light.

هُوَ الَّذِي يُصَلِّي عَلَيْكُمْ وَمَلَائِكَتُهُ لِيُخْرِجَكُم مِّنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ

So it means that those who are patient when calamities come, Allah (swt) will take them from darkness to light. And also Allah (swt) gives them mercy, rahma, and part of this rahma is forgiveness but rahma does many other things that we discussed last time about God’s mercy.
So you have to be prepared for calamities, not volunteering as I said but be prepared for it if it happens and try to be patient, not thinking that Allah (swt) doesn’t love you. Sometimes pressure can do something that success or positivity cannot do. And also, sometimes your enemies can do something for you that even your friends cannot do for you, Because sometimes enemies, especially those who are very bad, are so bad that you run away from them and then you jump into the hands of Allah (swt). A friend cannot do this, but enemies– especially those bad ones– make you much closer to Allah (swt). So if you have bad enemies, sometimes you have to be grateful for it.

• Calamities for friends of God

Ayatollah Mutahhari has a discussion that calamities are also especially expected for أولياء friends of God, saints. He mentions some Hadiths for example: One hadith from Imam Sadiq (as):

إن الله إذا أحب عبدا غثه بالبلاء غثا

If Allah loves a servant of him, he would insert him into bala’. You know like, if someone for example, you want him to learn how to swim. He has all the lessons but he’s always afraid of going to water, you throw him to water so that he has to survive. If you don’t struggle, you don’t learn. So if Allah (swt) really loves someone, غثه بالبلاء, Allah would cover him with calamities.But the beauty of this is that when Allah (swt) puts you into this, he watches you and he’s with you. So you will get more connected to him, you have more spiritual ties inshAllah.
Imam al Sadiq (as) also says,

إن أشد الناس بلاء الأنبياء

The people who had the greatest tests and trials and calamities were the prophets.

ثم الذين يلوون

Then, the people who come after them. Those who come in the rank second to the prophet.

ثم الأمثل فالأمثل

Those who are closer and then those who are closer. Depending how much they resemble them in their qualities, how close they are in their rank, they are expected to suffer. And you know, Rasool Allah (s) has said,

ما أوذي نبي مثل ما أوذيت

The prophets have the greatest suffering and among them Prophet Muhammad (saws) had the greatest.
If Allah doesn’t care about someone, then a sign of it might be that nothing wrong happens, everything they want happens. Sometimes Allah (swt) would leave someone. Like for example as a teacher if you have a very good student, you know he studies properly, you give him instructions but you are not very worried. If you have students who are weak, you work with them. But if you have very weak students who are careless, and you see it’s a waste of your time so you just ignore them. But yes, it’s a good sign if tragedies that damage your faith or piety don’t happen to you.

اللهم لا تجعل مصيبتنا في ديننا

For tragedies that damage your dignity and honour– but other challenges that are like death, illness, like poverty, having enemies: these are common, Prophets (sa) had only Allah (swt) and had these problems.

• Two factors for being creative and motivated

Then he says there are two things that have power to transform human beings and motivate them and bring out from them their potentials. One is love. When you love for example your work, you become very creative and innovative; other thing is bala’. So love and suffering or calamities, these two can motivate and make you very creative. Love can bring out your skills, your talents.

اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ صَبْرَ الشَّاكِرِينَ لَكَ ، وَ عَمَل الْخَائِفِينَ مِنْكَ، وَ يَقِينَ الْعَابِدِينَ لَكَ

Oh Allah (SWT) I ask you the patience of those who are grateful (sabr e shakarin).

If something comes from Allah (SWT) whether it is easy or difficult, whether it is health or illness, rich or poverty, if it comes from Him for you, then you should be grateful that you have been chosen to receive this gift. When something difficult happens you can use it in a good way, be patient and persistent you then can turn it into your advantage. You can start losing your patience and losing your determination and becoming hopeless and despair and then it becomes really bad thing. The same is with blessings, again blessing is up to you. You can keep blessings as blessings if you are grateful. You can turn blessings to this advantage to your disadvantage if you are not grateful. So it’s not fixed the same thing can for someone be blessing another person be a bad thing.

• Real Calamity

The only thing that we can say it’s always bad is the punishments of Allah (SWT) for our sins and bad actions. These are really bad because of two things;
1. These are caused by ourselves. Something which is not caused by you is never bad for you necessarily. but something that you have caused if it is bad then this is really bad.
2. From these punishments of Allah (SWT) nothing good comes out for you. E.g. one of the punishments of Allah (SWT) is Qaswatul Qulūb your heart becomes very hard. Hard –hearted, so this Qaswa can never be good because it’s not helping you. How can say with a positive approach to this I can make it good, you can never make it good. You have to only try to stop it. Who has caused Qaswatul Qulūb? Yourself and there is nothing positive to come.

• Taking Blessings as Granted

Then Ayatullah Mutahari mentions a story of a writer in Iran who committed suicide. He was a famous writer and he committed suicide and he says he was very pessimistic and depressed person but because actually in his life he was coming from a very rich background and he had everything he didn’t go through difficulties. So if you want to really up bring your children properly or your students properly don’t make them too much comfortable. If everything for them is ready and they have everything prepared then later they would not appreciate.

• World of Opposites

Then he says this world is a world of opposites. One of the things that you should know about this world is that it is based on tazad, opposition, it means opposite things all the time happens. There is a philosophical rule that Mullah Sadra says which is very important, very deep;
He says

لولا التضاد لما صحّ دوام الفيض عن المبدأ الجواد

Had it not been that there are opposite things, all the time changes happen. If there were no such things the grace from المبدأ الجواد Generous origin which is God would not have continued. So to have generous grace of God coming and continuing we need to go to different situations. Like day and night, ups and downs all should go hand in hand.
There is a beautiful Hadith from Amirul Mo’minin (AS) in 784 and Amirul Mo’minin (AS) says

بتشعيره المشاعر عرف أن لا مشعر له

From the fact that Allah (SWT) has given us our senses and our ability to understand we understand that He has no sense. Senses are created by Him. He Himself has no sense. You know this like five senses that we have and perception.

و بمضادته بين الأشياء عرف أن لا ضدّ له

By Him making things in opposition to each other we realize that He has no opposite.

و بمقارنته بين الأشياء عرف أن لا قرين له

By the fact that He makes things all so close to each other we realize that there is nothing close to Him that there is no like no counterpart there is no match.

ضاد النور بالظلمة، و الوضوح بالبهمة

Allah (SWT) has made light and darkness opposite to each other, clarity and ambiguity, dryness and wetness, hot and cold.

So Allah (SWT) brings things which are opposite to each other, makes things which are close far and things which are far he brings them close. So this is a confirmation of what Mullah Sadra says, that this world is full of Tazaab – opposition. In first sermon of Nahjul Balagah also Amirul Mo’minin (AS) says that the Creation of Adam is combined by different colors which means different dispositions in us so there is no way to have 100% uniformity everything is remaining the same always in the way that you like. It has to be going through changes and ups and downs. Then he says human beings move towards perfection when they lack perfection okay so if you have been given it from the beginning then there is no journey or for example he says Sa’ada- happiness is when you want something and you get it so if you always had it and you wouldn’t have wanted it. So we need to go through different conditions sometimes have – sometimes don’t have, sometimes lack – sometimes possess, then in this way we can make a journey. A journey always needs going from potential to actual and then that actual becomes potential for another thing if we have everything as we could have there is no journey.

• Human’s Desire for Eternity

Ayatollah Motahari says that actually the worry and fear about death is something that you don’t find it in animals. You know, animals share with us their interest in life. Any animal, even plants, they struggle for continuing the life. They try to face challenges that threaten their lives. But, thinking about future is not in animals. Therefore, they don’t have worry about death. Human beings in their fitrah, they have desire for eternity.
Then he says maybe we can actually here make an argument. Anything which is there in nature, for example, like human nature, there must be a reason for it, there must be a way to respond to it, to satisfy it. For example, if we become thirsty there must be something outside that quench our thirst that is water, if you become hungry there must be food, if there is desire for eternity it means that there must be eternal life available to us; otherwise, creation would not be making sense. So, he says we can say that any desire, any potentiality in human beings, must be coming with an ability, a possibility, of meeting that, satisfy that desire, making that potentiality actual.

• Death as Transition

He says death is relative. This is also very important. He says those people who have very negative view about this they think this is absolute destruction or absolute non-existence. You die and finish. But, we say death is end of one stage and beginning of another stage. For example, when wood becomes a plant or soil becomes a plant that soil has died. There is no longer soil, but now we have the plant. So it’s not that there is absolute death. It’s death of something and life of something else. So, it’s like Sun setting somewhere but rising in another place. And sometimes something small stops and something bigger starts. So, there is no absolute death or absolute destruction.
he says our transition from this world to the next world is somehow, not exactly, similar to our transition from womb of mother to this world. Of course not hundred percent. And something very beautiful he says. He says an embryo at the same time that is living in that condition, is developing organs that are not to be used, for example, your livers, your lung, your eyes, your ears, your tongue, mouth, throat all are developing but you are not using them there. If someone doesn’t know what is going to happen, he says this is abas, created in vain. Why you are making something that I’m not using. Not knowing that you are being prepared for a higher stage. These are preparations for moving to a higher stage. When you are in that stage, these things don’t make sense. But when you are born, you will start using them. So, similar to this, when we are in this Dunya, we have desires, ideas, that we cannot fully explain them in Dunya and if someone can show us what is going to happen afterwards, we understand; otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense. This is why in the Quran denial of resurrection is considered as thinking that our life in this world is absurd.

أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ

“Then did you think that We created you uselessly and that to Us you would not be returned?” [23:115]

So, creating you in vain is a result of not returning to Allah (SWT). So, this is Surah Muminun, verse 115. So, Allah (SWT) has created us desires that these desires would be satisfied not in this life or at least not with staying at the level of the physical life.

• Relation between This World and the Other World

Dunya is the school, is the training place for Akherah, madrasa. He says Dunya madrese-ye, a training place that human beings can train themselves. He says in Dunya, you learn, train, and prepare yourself for another life. You know the famous story he mentions from Nahjul Balagha. A person was blaming Dunya. He had not understood properly what is. Dunya and what is blamed. He was blaming Dunya all together. And Amir al-Mu’minin (AS) said,

أيها الذام للدنيا المغرور بغرورها

“O the one who blames Dunya but he’s himself deceived by Dunya.”

Dunya is not a bad thing as such it depends on your approach. If you look at Dunya with honesty Dunya is a very good and honest place.

دَارُ صِدْقٍ لِمَنْ صَدَقَهَا

Dunya is matjar awliya’ Allah, متجر أولياء الله. Is a place for tejaarah, for trade of the friends of Allah (SWT). Dunya is a very very good place. If you are honest, if you use it properly. But if you take Dunya as your ideal, you will be deceived. You are deceiving yourself, not Dunya.

• The reason for creating life and death

Allah (SWT) says in the Quran,

الَّذِي خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ وَالْحَيَاةَ لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ أَيُّكُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا ۚ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْغَفُور

“[He] who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed – and He is the Exalted in Might, the Forgiving -” [67:2]
First of all, look, it says, khalaghal mout, خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ, so mout is created. Mout is not nothing because mote is a stage, a transition. So, life is created, mout is also created so that Allah (SWT) would test you which of you is better in actions. Then he makes a point. He says his tests are not only to exhibit our potentials and what we have done, our achievements. His test is not just to explore other potentials and achievements. His tests are letting us to gain those achievements. So, this life is not just to expose something which was already there. You are exposing what you are gaining. So, it is in Dunya that you can gain and then you are tested. So, if we didn’t have this opportunity to gain then the test also was not making any sense.

o Providing Enough Opportunity for New Generations to Come

Another thing that Ayatollah Motahari mentions here is that this world has a limited space. If we wanted to keep everything as it is, then, there will be no chance for new things to come. For example, if you had all the flowers in a garden from last year, then you will not have new fresh flowers. If all people who used to live for example one thousand years ago on this planet, if they were all alive, then we could not have come to this world. And if we are going to be here forever, then new generations would not be able to come.

o Preparing Our Spirit for Being Upgraded to the Next World

In addition to what we said that every new generation needs to be given opportunity, we should understand that when a generation comes before goes away, qualifies itself for going to another level. So, the body dies but the spirit continues. Our body takes form, then through substantial motion through the harekat-e johari, as we say, of the body, at certain point a spirit is created. Allah (SWT) creates the spirit and this spirit never dies. Body again goes to the process and finally become body of an animal or another human being. If it’s become another human being, again a spirit can come out of it but the body goes back and will be recycled but the spirit is not recycled. So, death is the way of our spirit being upgraded to the next world, to the next level. And if this was not there and we were going always to be here, means our spirit is always in the cage, would never be able to go to the world of the spirits. So, those who think death is not followed by anything else and death is end of everything, they may be wondering. But those who believe that death is just a transition to another stage, then they would have no difficulty understanding this.

One of the famous Muslim philosophers is Sheikh Suhrawardi, Sheikh Shihab al-Din Ishraq Suhrawardi. He is the founder of hekmatol ishragh, illumination philosophy. He says, we do not recognize anyone as hakim, as a philosopher or someone who is expert in theosophy, unless he is able to separate his soul from his body; means to have voluntarily death.

• Punishments and Rewards in the Hereafter

One of the things that we use to prove resurrection, as you remember we had two arguments in the books of aqayed, sometimes we argue from divine justice, sometimes we argue for divine wisdom. So, we say the people who do something bad, they should receive justice. And many times this justice cannot be exercised in Dunya. Because people up to the last moment maybe they have power or maybe they have done so much bad thing that even if you take their life is not enough; someone who has killed 1000 people, 1 billion people how can in Dunya you give them justice? On the other hand, there are people who have been oppressed, people who have done lots of good things; Dunya is not enough to give them the reward. Especially, if someone is killed, someone is martyred. So, his life is finished what can you do in Dunya for him? So, there must be another world in which full justice is observed.

o Proportion between Actions and Rewards or Punishments

But the question some people make is there must be a kind of match between the action and reward and punishment. If someone has done something, the punishment or reward must be proportionate. For example, if he has made a big crime, the punishment should be also proportionate. If it has been less, the punishment should be less. There must be some similarity. But it seems that the punishments that we hear about them in the hereafter are much more than the crimes that people may commit in Dunya. For example, the Quran says,

وَمَنْ يَقْتُلْ مُؤْمِنًا مُتَعَمِّدًا فَجَزَاؤُهُ جَهَنَّمُ خَالِدًا فِيهَا

“But whoever kills a believer intentionally – his recompense is Hell, wherein he will abide eternally” [4:93]

The one who kills a believer deliberately, he would be in Hell forever. Or, the one who eats the money of the orphans, unjustly, he is eating fire. They say it’s too harsh. Why someone forever should be in Hell if he has killed one person? Why someone should be punished like this for eating the money of the orphans.
First of all, we should remember that no action would remain without being somehow reward or punishment even in Dunya. Even in Dunya, especially those actions which are about other people. Maybe something which is haqqollah, only Allah (SWT) is patient and delays the punishment. But when someone has done dholm to other people or has done good to other people, in Dunya he will see the result. But not complete results, but part of it.

So, definitely there is going to be justice. But, in order to understand the mechanism, we have to consider few points and then we have to insha Allah see how many types of punishments are there.

o Differences between this World and the Hereafter

The first point to understand the difference between this world and the Hereafter, although there are similarities but there are differences.

1. Change and Stability
First, Dunya is the world of change. Dunya is not fixed. Everything in Dunya expires. But Akherah is the world of stability. There is no motion, there is no change, there is stability. So, you have to remember these two things. So, don’t expect in Akherah, for example, something that is temporary, something which is quick, something which is expiring soon.

2. Pure and Impure Life
The second point, in Dunya, we don’t have pure life. In Dunya life and death are mixed, are combined. Look at us. Our body was dead, now it is alive, soon our body becomes again dead. But in the Hereafter, you have complete life. To the extent that Quran says

إِنَّ الدَّارَ الْآخِرَةَ لَهِيَ الْحَيَوَانُ

“And indeed, the home of the Hereafter – that is the [eternal] life” [29:64]

Hayawan means life. In the hereafter, everything has life. Even objects have life. Even sand, water, tree, fruits, everything there have life. And that life is permanent.

3. To Plant in this World and to Harvest in the Hereafter
The third thing is that in the Hereafter, we harvest what we have planted in Dunya.
There are many hadeeth about this. For example, the famous hadeeth Rasulullah (SAW) said,

الدنيا مزرعة الآخرة

“Dunya is the farm for the Hereafter”

In the farm you plan things and the same things that you planted but with some growth, you can harvest. You cannot expect to harvest something that you have not planted or something that another farmer has planted. You have to plant it yourself.

4. Individual and Common Destiny
In Dunya, we are interacting with each other. In Dunya, there are lots of interactions. We are like passengers of the same boat. If someone is not careful, can affect lives of other people. If I have good friends or bad friends, it can affect me. Good parents can affect their children. Bad parents can affect, teachers, neighbors, all friends. Lots of interactions in Dunya but in the Hereafter, no one is going to affect you. Although, we still will be living together, but no one can harm me or no one can benefit me, unless I have already planted for it. For example, shafa’aa is possible, but shafa’aa is something that you have to work for it and prepare and qualify for it. So, in Dunya, sometimes we cannot have full justice. Why? For example, Allah (SWT) looks at this person. This person has children. If he is going to be punished soon, the children are innocent, the families are innocent. Lots of friends, parents, they will suffer. So, many things to consider. But in the Hereafter, every person is responsible for his or her action and situation and it would not affect other people.

• Different Types of Relations between Actions and Rewards or Punishments

So, Ayatollah Motahari says there are three types of relations between actions and reward and punishment.
1. Contractual Relation
One type of relation is based on a decision a kind of contract or agreement that is made in a society. They say if you drive with this speed, this is the penalty. If you do this transaction, this is the penalty. If you, for example, import or export this material, this is the penalty. So, it’s based on agreement on legislation.

2. Existential Relation
The second type of relation is, cause and effect relation. Sometimes, the reward or punishments are not based on a legislation or a contract or agreement is real, existential. For example, when you study hard, what is your reward? Knowledge. This is existential. So, sometimes punishment and reward are the outcomes or the effects of what we have done. Especially, this happens to certain actions. For example, as I said, the people who do dhulm, they quickly see Dunya the result. Especially, if you do dhulm to your parents or if you do good to people, especially, to your parents to relatives, sele-ye rahem, even in Dunya we would see the results. But, again we say this is not enough. This doesn’t explain Akherah. Akherah is more than this. So, it’s not based on a decision, legislation contract, is not like cause and effect.

3. Embodiment of Actions
What the Quran tells us about our Akherah is that actually you would see your own actions. So, Akherah is nothing other than opening your eyes to what you have been doing. Allah (SWT) says,

يَوْمَئِذٍ يَصْدُرُ النَّاسُ أَشْتَاتًا لِيُرَوْا أَعْمَالَهُمْ

“That Day, the people will depart separated [into categories] to be shown [the result of] their deeds.” [99:6]

People come in different groups to be so that they will be shown their own actions.

And there are many verses about this. For example,

يَوْمَ تَجِدُ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ مُحْضَرًا وَمَا عَمِلَتْ مِنْ سُوءٍ تَوَدُّ لَوْ أَنَّ بَيْنَهَا وَبَيْنَهُ أَمَدًا بَعِيدًا

“The Day every soul will find what it has done of good present [before it] and what it has done of evil, it will wish that between itself and that [evil] was a great distance.” [3:20]

Surah Al-i-Imran, verse 30. Every soul would find what they have done presented to them. You see your own actions. When it comes to the bad action they wish there was a big distance between them like a wall between them and their bad actions. Or, in Surah Kahf, verse 49,

وَوَجَدُوا مَا عَمِلُوا حَاضِرًا

“And they will find what they did present [before them].” [18:49]

They will find what they have done present.

So, the conclusion is that what we are going to have as a reward and punishment is not something that is made according to a contract or according to legislation, then you can question why it is so much. It’s the same thing. Nothing is added to what you have created and fabricated. Even it is interesting that when it comes to good side Allah (SWT) may help. But in the bad side, it’s yourself.

• Some Misconceptions Regarding shafa’ah

1. The first question, isn’t shafa’ah or intercession in conflict with our belief in tawhid with respect to ibadah? Shouldn’t we only worship Allah (SWT)? You know that the idol worshipers, they used to say that these are our shofa’aa, these are going to intercede for us.

مَا نَعْبُدُهُمْ إِلَّا لِيُقَرِّبُونَا إِلَى اللَّهِ زُلْفَىٰ

“We only worship them that they may bring us nearer to Allah in position.” [39:3]

2. The second question or objection is, isn’t shafa’ah in conflict with tawhid with respect to divine essence, al tawhid al dhati? Here it’s a delicate issue. They say, when you believe in shafa’ah, it means that Allah (SWT) is not going to forgive and then you are asking, for example, the prophet or imam to ask him to forgive and this means that they have greater love and mercy than Allah (SWT).

3. The third problem is the idea of shafa’ah may lead to carelessness of people when it comes to religious duties and obligations because they may say even if we failed to obey, Allah (SWT) is going to forgive us and if he doesn’t forgive, we have shofa’aa, we ask them to forgive.

4. The fourth problem is that shafa’ah seems to be rejected in the Quran. Because Allah (SWT) when he described the Day of Judgment, one of the things he mentioned about the day of judgment is that it’s the day in which no intercession is accepted. For example, in Surah Al-Baqara,

وَاتَّقُوا يَوْمًا لَا تَجْزِي نَفْسٌ عَنْ نَفْسٍ شَيْئًا وَلَا يُقْبَلُ مِنْهَا شَفَاعَةٌ وَلَا يُؤْخَذُ مِنْهَا عَدْلٌ وَلَا هُمْ يُنْصَرُونَ

“And fear a Day when no soul will suffice for another soul at all, nor will intercession be accepted from it, nor will compensation be taken from it, nor will they be aided.” [2:48]

5. Question or objection 6: shafa’ah means Allah (SWT) might be influenced by someone and we know that Allah (SWT) is never subject to change and nothing can have any impact on him so how do you believe that intercessor may intercede for you because this leads he’s influencing God.

• Relation between shafa’ah and Divine Justice

6. Number 7, objection 7: that shafa’ah is leading to a kind of discrimination. It means that there is no justice people who commit crimes, some of them may manage to bypass justice by shafa’ah. And some people may not have anyone to intercede for them.

• Correct Interpretation of shafa’ah

Sometimes in a society you see people who have money or power or contacts, they have high officials, they managed bypass all the laws and limitations because either they have money or power or contacts. This is a weak society and this is not the way we understand shafa’ah. You should not understand shafa’ah as a kind of weakness in Allah (SWT) system of justice that the laws are there but you can ignore them.

You cannot start, this is a very important point, you cannot start gaining on the Day of Judgment; but if you have, for example, in Dunya listened to an aalim followed a good imam or leader, this is not to start on the Day of Judgment, this is something that can help you in Dunya and can keep helping you even on the Day of Judgment. So, this is a result of your own achievement in Dunya. This is different. What the ayah is denying is people doing nothing and then on the Day of Judgment trying to cheat by offering money or for example introducing other people as you know my father was a good person so forgive me because of my father. How much you listened to your father? How much you followed your father?

• Some Historical Confirmations for Islamic System of Justice

1. When amirul mumineen (AS) realize that his daughter had borrowed necklace from treasure house he blamed and questioned her and said if it had not mean that this was taken as a loan and was guaranteed to be given back and even if it is lost to be replaced or compensated, I would have executed the punishment of theft. Even to his daughter he said this.

2. A woman from a very noble family had made a crime and people went to Rasulullah and said please forgive her she comes from a noble family and Rasulullah said this is a problem that has destroyed previous nations that when an ordinary person, a poor person, commits a crime, they punish him but someone whose rich or comes from a noble background commits a crime they don’t punish. This is destroying nations.

So, we don’t have such concept of shafa’a which is like discrimination that some people make all the crimes but they can find a way out. No, the idea is that there is a provision for everyone, because it’s very important that it should not be only for some people, there should be no monopoly or a special privilege. Every person can benefit from shafa’ah and shafa’ah is not to make you careless.

• Different Types of Shafa’ah

There are two types of shafa’ah. And maybe in this way, you don’t find it in other books before him, he’s introducing a new terminology, he says we have shafa’ah of leadership or shafa’ah of action, and we have shafa’ah of forgiveness or shafa’ah of grace; فضل.

o shafa’ah of leadership

It means that you have followed someone in Dunya, you have had a good leader for example, and on the day of judgment you will be resurrected with that leader that you have followed, and then that leader would go to heaven and takes his people to heaven, or a bad leader would take them to fire. So, this type of shafa’ah, is very natural that in Dunya if you had a good teacher, good leader, good guide, you have benefited from their guidance you have followed them, and in Akhirah also you can get help from them.

Ayatollah Motahari says; what we have in hadith that many people will benefit from shafa’ah of Imam Hussain (AS), it’s because many people in Dunya have been inspired by Imam Hussain (AS), and have been attracted to faith by Imam Hussain (AS), have become good people because of Imam Hussain (AS).

o shafa’ah of forgiveness

The second type of shafa’ah, is more problematic, and that is what he calls shafa’ah of مغفرة; forgiveness, and this is where many objections have been raised as we mentioned in the beginning.

So, in order to easily accept and understand this, he says you first should understand that for our happiness or for our salvation, we have two main sources, two currents; one is your actions, your performance, the steps that you yourself take. These are very important. Your own efforts;

He has a flow a current like a river of mercy in this world. You walk but you should get into this also river, otherwise you cannot just rely on your own steps. He sends this water to you, this mercy to you, you also walk. We need both. If you don’t do anything, you cannot get access to it, but if you say I don’t need this, you are going to die half the way.

He says one of the principles in this world is what he calls اصل تطهیر he says one of the manifestations; it’s a very beautiful discussion, one of the manifestations of Allah’s mercy is that He has arrangement, He has provision in this world, for purification, for cleaning ourselves.

He says there is also اصل سلامت; principle of health. What does it mean? It means that the main and primary condition in this world is to be healthy and sound. Illness is a secondary thing. When it comes to spirituality is also this:

کلّ مولود یولد علی الفطرة

“Every child is born, in the condition of فطرة”.

Every child, no matter to which family, to which part of the world. Then the parents the environment may take him to another direction, otherwise every child is born with the state of purity and fiṭrah and every person which is born in fiṭrah, has also a tendency a kind of attraction towards this original condition.

When you are moving against the nature you cannot keep going till the end of the world, it stops.
So, what is the main direction, is fiṭrah, and sooner or later you have to go back to that condition.

Now what’s the relation between maghfirah and shafa’ah? This is very important question. His idea is this, he has a beautiful idea, he says; it’s all Allah’s raḥmah, no one can add to his raḥmah, and no one is more merciful than Allah (SWT), but this is the way he has designed that part of His raḥmah comes through shafa’ah. Part of it comes through for example توبه, part of it comes through guidance, part of it comes through shafa’ah. He has especially made people that He says go to them and ask them to ask me to forgive you.

Q: I have a question about some points in the previous hadith. Why if someone has done good in his life, he need the mercy of Allah?

A: Because they have done something good, but they have also had some sins and shortcomings, it’s not that they only did good thing, plus even if you have not done anything bad, your actions are not enough. You need, because you have how much good actions? And there is an eternal journey. How much provision you have?

آه من قلّة الزّاد

If Allah doesn’t multiply the reward, our action is not that much. So, firstly our good actions are very limited. Secondly we don’t know whether they are pure, so that they are accepted or not. Thirdly we have lots of bad actions. We need raḥmah of Allah to forgive us, we need raḥmah of Allah to accept our actions, we need raḥmah of Allah to multiply our good actions, so we need all these things.

• Relation between Tawheed and Tawasol

He says, based on what we have said so far we can come to a very important conclusion: before asking anyone to help you in asking Allah to forgive you, you have to make sure whether that person has been given any position by Allah to do Shafa’a. Does he have any authority? Does he have any right to do Shafa’a? In surah Al-Ma’ida verse 35, we read:

…يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَابْتَغُوا إِلَيْهِ الْوَسِيلَةَ

O those who believed, fear Allah and seek the means…
These are means which are sacred which are authorized by Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala to use. He has made a system and this system works based on causality, there is cause and effect, there is Asbab, “أبى الله أن يجري الأمور إلا بأسبابها”. There are some causes that are known to us, empirical causes, but there are also supernatural or a spiritual causes that we understand through religion, through Quran, through Sunnah. So to know that something can spiritually help you or something can be a cause that Allah would function the rule that cause or to be a channel that allows mercy comes to you through that channel needs investigation, you cannot just think and say this may work. So we should find for Shafa’a, those people that Allah has granted them the right for Shafa’a the position of Shafi’.

• Reason for Tawassul

In the Quran, we have this beautiful Ayah in Surah An-Nisaa Chapter 4 Verse 64:

…وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذْ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ جَاءُوكَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا اللَّهَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ الرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُوا اللَّهَ تَوَّابًا رَحِيمًا

“Wa law annahum ‘iz zalamu anfusahum…”, Allah is introducing to us a spiritual or supernatural means, He is telling us that if you want to be forgiven, one way to be forgiven is this: “Wa law annahum ‘iz zalamu anfusahum jaa ooka…” When they have been unjust to themselves, when they have oppressed themselves come to you, “fastaghfaru Allah wastaghfara lahumu arrasool…”.

Still they ask Allah for forgiveness not that they ask you to forgive on behalf of Allah. Still Allah is the one who forgives and we should ask Him to forgive, we don’t ask Rasulullah to forgive us on behalf of Allah. So we have now two requests, the person’s request and Rasulullah request. Maybe that person’s request by itself is enough, but if you want to make sure that inshaAllah you are certainly forgiven, go to Rasulullah and pray to Allah to forgive you and ask Rasulullah, “ please you also ask Allah to forgive me!”, then you have strengthened your Istighfar by Rasulallah also asking Allah to forgive. So, prayer is a Waseela but maybe your prayer is not a strong, you ask someone also who is closer to Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala than you to help you with this prayer.

• Relation between Tawheed and Shafa’aa

Now if you remember in the first session we had about Shafa’aa, we mentioned few objections. Some people said it conflicts with Tawheed Ibadi التوحيد العبادي, some said it conflicts with Tawheed Thati التوحيد الذاتي. We say, it doesn’t conflict with Tawheed – actually it is a requirement of believing in a system which is based on Tawheed and then from Tawheed you have Kathra, so Allah is Sabab Al-asbab سبب الأسباب, He is the ultimate cause, the cause of the causes. But we cannot all expect everything come directly from him to every creature. what we receive come through a system, in that system there is a role for each factor, if you pray what you receive becomes greater, if your parents pray for you what you receive is greater. This is not increasing the source – very important point please remember – their kindness to parents (selat rahim, shafa’a… ) are not increasing the source which is Allah, because the source is unlimited. These are only extending your container, so you are not influencing him you, are only changing yourself to receive more.

• Apparent Contradiction between believing in Shafa’a and Hardworking

Another objection was, if you believe in Shafa’a, then you may become Nauzubillah careless, it would make you cynic, we said no, the same is about Maghfirah, if you believe in Allah being forgiving the same problem can happen but the answer is although we believe Allah is forgiving but there is no guarantee especially for people who underestimate sins. If someone says my sin is not important it’s going to be forgiven, this is one of the sins that may not be forgiven
“إيّاكم والمحقرّات من الذنوب”, you should be very careful with respect with those sins that you underestimate those things that you say it’s not important, actually they are, then, become very important. Or “لا صغيرة مع الإصرّار”, if you insist on the sin. So, the same thing which we say about Maghfirah, forgiving, comes about Shafa’a, if someone says I sin, it will be forgiven by Shafa’a. Shafa’a is not for people who are insisting on sinning and underestimating sins, okay, so this problem is not applying. Another thing was why in the Quran there are places that Allah rejects Shafa’a; we say, there are places that are Allah also confirms Shafa’a, we have false Shafa’a, and we have true Shafa’a, wrong and right. If you think that someone can do Shafa’a for you without any condition and Allah is going to be forced to forgive you, this is false.

• An Important Point Regarding Shafa’a

Everything we said so far is correct but I think there is still something more and this shows maximum love of Allah swt. Allah swt knows our file completely even better than ourselves, but when He wants to ask people to do Shafa’a, He may not show them everything, He shows them some of the things about us and then based on that they decide to do Shafa’a but if they knew everything that Allah knows about us they would have run away from us. He would not reject the request of other people for your forgiveness because they don’t know everything about you. For example, if we have forty people, Imam Sadiq a.s. says, if forty Mo’min attend funeral, Janazah, of a dead person (the person has died), if forty people say:

اللّهم إنَّا لا نعلم منه إلاّ خيراً
وانت اعلم به منا

O Allah, we don’t know anything except good from this person. It means that He is not judging based on His comprehensive knowledge. He’s lowering his expectations, and He says if forty of my servants are happy with him, it is enough. This is very logical also, because for us to be able to live by His standards is very difficult, because you know if there is even a little trace of problem in our action He would see, but is in a sense closing His eyes, He’s overlooking, He says: “You don’t need to please me, please these people, I will be pleased, please your parents, I will be pleased.” He is very very easy in being pleased, and I can assure you there is no one who can be pleased easier than Allah swt.

• Historical Background of the Question

Āyatullāh Mutahharī says: “in the past, if you go 50 years ago for example”, He wrote this book in forty or fifty years ago, so now it’s better to say: if you go hundred years ago, this question was not very public, this was a question that Muslim philosophers had addressed in Philosophical books, but nowadays they have become public discussions, and he says there was a meeting of some societies, like doctors or university lecturers, he says once they ask people to write any question that they wanted to be discussed in those meetings, and then they gave him a notebook of all these questions, and he said one question that many people had asked was about this issue that “Are good actions of Non-Muslims accepted or not?” “Are they going to heaven or not?” this type of things. therefore this has become a very important question for everyone today and we have to address it.

• Not to Judge about Individuals

We need to clarify two points; first, we are not concerned with individuals, we don’t want to say this particular person goes to hell or heaven, no one can judge except Allah (SWT). Yes, if there are people that in the Quran or in authentic Hadiths, it is explained to us that what is the destiny, that’s another issue; for example, Quran says about فرعون[8]:

يَقْدُمُ قَوْمَهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فَأَوْرَدَهُمُ النَّارَ

“On the Day of Resurrection he will lead his people and conduct them into the Fire” (Surah Hūd: 98)
Based on this آیه[9], we can say this is the situation of Fir‘awn, or if there is authentic Hadiths; otherwise, by our own thinking and calculations we cannot say this person is going to hell or to heaven. This is very important point.
He says, similar to this is about who is better than the other, sometime people say, which ‘Ālim is nearer to God? For example, Muqadas Ardābīlī or Sayyed ibn Ṭāwoūs? He says we cannot judge.
So, nothing can be fixed by us about individuals, of course if it is in the Quran or in authentic Hadiths that’s another issue.
These are two points that we wanted to make them clear. This was actually one point, and now the second point.

• Is Islam the only true religion at this age?

Now, the second point; this is very delicate issue. Āyatullāh Mutahharī says the question; “Are good actions of non-Muslims or non-Shia accepted or not?” Is one question, and “Is Whether Islam the religion which is pleasing to Allah (SWT) in this time and age or not?” is another question.
These are not necessarily the same, basically he says and this is where you have to read carefully word by word

o Three Different Viewpoints in this Regard

1. Viewpoint of those who claim open-mindedness

He says some people think that there can be more than one true religion at each time; for example, today you can follow different religions or different divine religions. He says we don’t say this; we say it’s not a matter of having option. For example, he refers to George Jordāc, who has a book on Imam ‘Alī (as), or Jabrān Khalīl Jabrān; these two were Christians and they had books on Imam ‘Alī (as), they were very impressed by Imam ‘Alī (as), but they had the idea that they can have another religion and still be successful and still they thought that this is the position on Imam ‘Alī (as). For example, he says that George Jordāc says: “Imam ‘Alī is not a person who would impose one particular religion on people”.
It means that for example a Muslim can say from today I want to be a Christian, or a Christian says I want to be a Muslim, just as a choice. They are equal and you can shift from one to the other. This is what some people have thought.

2. Viewpoint of Close minded People

On the other hand, there are some people who say no, there is only one way of being religious and that is my religion for example, or even not my religion, my مذهب[20]. So if you are not a person from my Madhhab, there is no benefit, even your Ṣalāt and not Ṣalāt is the same; means your Ṣalāt and your نعوذ بالله[21] sinful actions are the same for example. Some people are this much ridge it.

3. Viewpoint of Quran

So he says our idea is this:

لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ

“There is no compulsion in religion” (Surah al-Baqara: 256)
People are not forced, but this doesn’t mean that also logically all the sides are equal. So Āyatullāh Mutahharī says, there is no compulsion religion, but at the same time we believe that in every age there is one religion, but mainly he talks about شریعه[22]; one of the things that you have to be very careful about it.
I think many times between دین[23] and Sharī‘a, no clear distinction is made and this causes problem.
Dīn and Sharī‘a are not the same thing. Sharī‘a is a part of the Dīn. Sharī‘a is the legal rulings and the code of the law of the religion.
Anyway, there is one religion with one particular for example Sharī‘a; that is the one that in this age would be most pleasing to God.
Then he says, some people say Allah has said in the Quran in Surah Āl-i-Imrān, verse 85 that:

وَمَن يَبْتَغِ غَيْرَ الْإِسْلَامِ دِينًا فَلَن يُقْبَلَ مِنْهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

“Should anyone follow a religion other than Islam, it shall never be accepted from him, and he will be among the losers in the Hereafter”.
Then Āyatullāh Mutahharī says that some people have said this Āyah shows that we should be submitting also to God, Islam in a general sense, in the wider sense, and it can be for Muslims or Christians, who are submissive to God.
Āyatullāh Mutahharī says: Yes, Islam here is general وَمَن يَبْتَغِ غَيْرَ الْإِسْلَامِ, means submission to God; Islam of Abraham, but how today am I submitting to God?
There is no kind of options logically, I’m not talking in practical options, I’m talking in logical options. You have to do your best to find out what’s the way which is most pleasing to God today, what is the way that God wants from you today?
So, submission to God is the main thing, and submission to God in every age may require different things, but I say in brackets, here there is a very important point that submission is the main thing, and then how you act after submission is the second main thing, but the main thing is the submission to God, and therefore we later explain that if someone out of sincere submission thinks the second best or the third best religion is the one that God wants from him, again he can be a person who has Islam.

• Good Actions without Faith

After these two, we go to the main discussion; can we have righteous deeds, عمل صالح[24]; good actions which will be accepted and rewarded by God, without faith or not?
So, the major question for us is this; is action or if we are able to use ‘Amal-e-Ṣāliḥ, because it’s a question can we say this is ‘Amal-e-Ṣāliḥ or ‘Amal-e-Ṣāliḥ is only for believers? “Is good action or ‘Amal-e-Ṣāliḥ of people who don’t believe in Islam or don’t believe in Shia-Islam is accepted by God or not?”

o Intellectual Argument of those Who Claim Open Mindedness

And he mentions here two opinions again; he says some people say that for God people are the same, God does not discriminate, He has equal relation to everyone, and good action is good action essentially, intrinsically, it’s not by contract or choice. So they say because God has equal relation to all human beings, God does not discriminate and secondly good action is good action in its essence.

o Intellectual Argument of the Close Minded

There are also people who say, Āyatullāh Mutahharī says; opposite to this on the other extreme, that only a small fraction of people who have proper religion, proper Madhhab, even for example, proper way of doing Fiqhīyāt, they can go to heaven and their actions are accepted. And he says for them most of people’s actions are not going to be accepted, they are not going to be having access to heaven. This is the opposite opinion, but he says there is a third approach which is the Quranic approach, which is the balanced approach.

o Balance Approach

The balance approach is that a good action which has, if you remember in Akhlāq, we had this discussion, which has حسن فعلی[29] and حسن فاعلی[30]. So the action itself is good, and at least the intention is that you do this because it is good, this action would be valuable. You cannot say it’s useless, even if the intention is not قصد قربة[31], if it is not for example gaining reward, just you do something good, because you feel this is good, this is valid, but there can be different levels depending what is your intention, whether you have faith or not, whether you have معرفة[32] or not, there can be lots of different ranks for good action, in Akhlāq we discussed this and InshāAllāh here also we will discuss this.

• Arguments of Those Who Claim Open Mindedness

o Intellectual Argument

They say Allah (swt) has equal relation with all beings. Therefore if someone does something good, no matter where he lives, when he lives, which nation he belongs to Allah would accept. There is no kind of discrimination or bias. The second premise is that good action and bad action are different in their nature. Good action is good action, no matter who is doing it where and when, Muslim, non-Muslim, believer or non-believer. If they do good action is good action. So if you put these two together. Any person can do good action and Allah has a relation which is equal to every person. So who does good Allah would accept and who does bad, Allah would not accept. There is no difference between mu‘min (believer) and kāfir (disbeliever).

• Qur’anic Argument

The second argument is Qur’anic. They bring verses of Qur’an that criticize some faith communities who thought that only their good action would be accepted or only other people would be punished for their sins and bad actions and crimes.

1. In surah Baqara, verses 80-82:

وَقَالُوا لَن تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلَّا أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَةً ۚ قُلْ أَتَّخَذْتُمْ عِندَ اللَّـهِ عَهْدًا فَلَن يُخْلِفَ اللَّـهُ عَهْدَهُ ۖ أَمْ تَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّـهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴿٨٠﴾ بَلَىٰ مَن كَسَبَ سَيِّئَةً وَأَحَاطَتْ بِهِ خَطِيئَتُهُ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ ﴿٨١﴾ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ أُولَـٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ ﴿٨٢﴾

“وَقَالُوا لَن تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلَّا أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَةً;

they said fire is not going to touch us except for few days”. So means either we will not put into fire or even if we go into fire would be for few days, for a short period of time. ایاما معدوده means very short period of time, for few days.

“قُلْ أَتَّخَذْتُمْ عِندَ اللَّـهِ عَهْدًا فَلَن يُخْلِفَ اللَّـهُ عَهْدَهُ;

tell them have you got a promise from God and you know that Allah keep His promise”

. “أَمْ تَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّـهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ;

or you are attributing to Allah what you don’t know”

. “بَلَىٰ مَن كَسَبَ سَيِّئَةً وَأَحَاطَتْ بِهِ خَطِيئَتُهُ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ;

whoever gains or does something bad and is surrounded by his bad things, it’s not one sin, it’s too many sins surround him, these people are people of fire and they will be there forever.”

“الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ أُولَـٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ ;

those who have faith and do righteous deeds, they are the people of jannah, they will be there forever.” So this ayah is criticizing those followers of particular faith who thought that they are not going to be treated like other people, they have special arrangement.

2. Or for example surah Al-e-Imran, verses 24 and 25:

ذَٰلِك بِأَنَّهُمْ قَالُوا لَن تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلَّا أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَاتٍ ۖ وَغَرَّهُمْ فِي دِينِهِم مَّا كَانُوا يَفْتَرُونَ ﴿٢٤﴾ فَكَيْفَ إِذَا جَمَعْنَاهُمْ لِيَوْمٍ لَّا رَيْبَ فِيهِ وَوُفِّيَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ ﴿٢٥﴾

That is because they say, ‘The Fire shall not touch us except for a number of days,’ and they have been misled in their religion by what they used to fabricate. (24) But how will it be [with them] when We gather them on a day in which there is no doubt, and every soul shall be recompensed fully for what it has earned, and the y will not be wronged? (25)

“وَغَرَّهُمْ فِي دِينِهِم مَّا كَانُوا يَفْتَرُونَ ﴿٢٤﴾ فَكَيْفَ إِذَا جَمَعْنَاهُمْ لِيَوْمٍ لَّا رَيْبَ فِيهِ وَوُفِّيَتْ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ”.

Their fabrication and lies deceived them”.

3. You find this in surah Baqarah, verses 111 and 112:

وَقَالُوا لَن يَدْخُلَ الْجَنَّةَ إِلَّا مَن كَانَ هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ ۗ تِلْكَ أَمَانِيُّهُمْ ۗ قُلْ هَاتُوا بُرْهَانَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ ﴿١١١﴾ بَلَىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّـهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ فَلَهُ أَجْرُهُ عِندَ رَبِّهِ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ ﴿١١٢﴾

“وَقَالُوا لَن يَدْخُلَ الْجَنَّةَ إِلَّا مَن كَانَ هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ;

they said no one will enter Heaven unless he is a Jew or Christian.” Perhaps it means that those who were Jews in that place, they used to say only Jews go and Christians say only Christians go, but as a kind of compound consensus no one other than Jew and Christian go. There was an agreement between them that no one other than us go to Heaven, but among themselves they had differences.

“قُلْ هَاتُوا بُرْهَانَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ;

if you are truthful bring your proof.”

“بَلَىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّـهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ;”

this verse is very important in the discussion about unity of God and unity in God

The main thing is this

“مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّـهِ;

whoever submit his faith to God means he’s submissive

وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ

and he does good deeds.” You cannot submit your faith to God and do bad things or do nothing.

“فَلَهُ أَجْرُهُ عِندَ رَبِّهِ;

he has his reward near his Lord”.

4. Then the next verse is about rejecting ideas of some Muslims, some Muslims also have this idea. Qur’an says:

لَّيْسَ بِأَمَانِيِّكُمْ وَلَا أَمَانِيِّ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ ۗ مَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا يُجْزَ بِهِ وَلَا يَجِدْ لَهُ مِن دُونِ اللَّـهِ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا ﴿١٢٣﴾

“ليْسَ بِأَمَانِيِّكُمْ وَلَا أَمَانِيِّ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ;

it’s neither a matter of your wishes or wishes of the people of the book.” You cannot go to Heaven by wishing and dreams.

“مَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا يُجْزَ بِهِ”.

This is a general universal rule, no matter you are Muslim or not, believer or not.

“مَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا يُجْزَ بِهِ;

whoever does something bad will be given its due penalty.”

“وَلَا يَجِدْ لَهُ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا;

he would not find other than Allah any guardian or helper.”

وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ الصَّالِحَاتِ مِن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ الْجَنَّةَ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ نَقِيرًا

And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, should he be faithful—such shall enter paradise and they will not be wronged [so much as] the speck on a date-stone.[5] (124)

5. Also they bring these verses which confirm that any good action is taken to account and is rewarded, any good action, no matter who has done it. (We are moving to another set). For example in surah Az-zalzala, verses 7 and 8:

فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ ﴿٧﴾ وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ شَرًّا يَرَهُ ﴿٨﴾

So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, (7) and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it. (8)

Or in surah At-tawba, verse 120:

إِنَّ اللَّـهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ ﴿١٢٠﴾

Indeed Allah does not waste the reward of the virtuous. (120)

Muhsinin doesn’t say they have to be mu’min or not; any person who does Ihsan. For example, Qur’an says:

“وبالوالدین احسانا”

so anyone who does احسان to his والدین this ayah includes.

“إِنَّ اللَّـهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ” or “إِنَّا لَا نُضِيعُ أَجْرَ مَنْ أَحْسَنَ عَمَلًا;

truly we would not waste or ignore the reward of those who do something good.”[6]

6. The next verse that they mentioned to support their claim is the famous ayah, sura Al-Ma‘ida, verse 69:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالصَّابِئُونَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّـهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ ﴿٦٩﴾

Indeed the faithful, the Jews, the Sabaeans, and the Christians—those who have faith in Allah and the Last Day and act righteously—they will have no fear, nor will they grieve. (69)

They say you should have faith in God, you should do righteous deeds and should have faith also in the hereafter, but it doesn’t mention to be Muslim or Christian.

• Argument of the Close Minded

These people say if you are not a Muslim and you are kāfir, your actions are not accepted and also among Muslims if you are not a Shia, your actions are not accepted maybe some Sunnis say if you are not Sunni your actions are not accepted.

• Intellectual Argument

Their intellectual argument is if Allah is going to accept our good deeds from Muslims and non-Muslims and then among Muslims from Sunni and Shia, they say then what’s the point of having Islam? Or what’s the point of, among Muslim, to believe in Imams and be Shia? This is what they saying. They say either you say faith is not important or you have to say actions of people who have no faith is not accepted. The second is they bring some verses and some hadiths.

• Argument from Quran

1. They bring verses of the Qur’an which says the deeds of kofār are void. For example surah Ibrahim, verse 18:

مَّثَلُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِرَبِّهِمْ ۖ أَعْمَالُهُمْ كَرَمَادٍ اشْتَدَّتْ بِهِ الرِّيحُ فِي يَوْمٍ عَاصِفٍ ۖ لَّا يَقْدِرُونَ مِمَّا كَسَبُوا عَلَىٰ شَيْءٍ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ هُوَ الضَّلَالُ الْبَعِيدُ ﴿١٨﴾

A parable of those who defy their Lord: their deeds are like ashes over which the wind blows hard on a tempestuous day: they have no power over anything they have earned. That is extreme error. (18)
2. Or in sura Nur verse 39-40:

وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَعْمَالُهُمْ كَسَرَابٍ بِقِيعَةٍ يَحْسَبُهُ الظَّمْآنُ مَاءً حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَهُ لَمْ يَجِدْهُ شَيْئًا وَوَجَدَ اللَّـهَ عِندَهُ فَوَفَّاهُ حِسَابَهُ ۗ وَاللَّـهُ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ ﴿٣٩﴾ أَوْ كَظُلُمَاتٍ فِي بَحْرٍ لُّجِّيٍّ يَغْشَاهُ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِ سَحَابٌ ۚ ظُلُمَاتٌ بَعْضُهَا فَوْقَ بَعْضٍ إِذَا أَخْرَجَ يَدَهُ لَمْ يَكَدْ يَرَاهَا ۗ وَمَن لَّمْ يَجْعَلِ اللَّـهُ لَهُ نُورًا فَمَا لَهُ مِن نُّورٍ ﴿٤٠﴾

“وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَعْمَالُهُمْ كَسَرَابٍ بِقِيعَةٍ”

this verse compares the actions of kofār with sarāb (سراب) means mirage. So their actions from distance looks great, but when you go nearer, it’s empty, is void. Or

“أَوْ كَظُلُمَاتٍ فِي بَحْرٍ لُّجِّيٍّ يَغْشَاهُ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِ مَوْجٌ مِّن فَوْقِهِ سَحَابٌ ۚ ظُلُمَاتٌ بَعْضُهَا فَوْقَ بَعْضٍ”

it’s full of darkness, darkness over darkness. So, they say look these verses explain the value of the deeds of kofār. What about non-Shia from Muslims?

• Argument from Hadiths

1. Imam Baqir (a) is quoted as saying to Muhammad Ibn-e-Muslim who was one of the great companions of Imam, that if someone does all the ‘ibadat (deeds)…., but doesn’t believe in the Imam that Allah has appointed for him, his actions would not be accepted. So, they say if you are not a Shia, your actions are not accepted.
And then Ayatollah Mutahari says they may even go further and they say the actions of non-Shia are not accepted and the sins of Shia are forgiven automatically because they say if you have īman it’s enough.

• The Value of Faith

Are people who have lack īman going to be punished? This is one question. Are the good deeds of people who have no īman going to be accepted or not? Third, is kofr or denial causing drop of your good actions, they demolish your good action or not? First, Ayatollah Mutahari has a discussion about kofr and about how Allah is going to judge about kofār. He says there is no doubt that we have two types of kofr. Sometimes kofr is a kind of stubbornness, a kind of insistence on false position while you know the truth and sometimes kofr is a matter of not knowing; you don’t believe because you don’t know. So
there are people who don’t know. They are excused, we call them jāhil-e-ghaāsir; they have no access to the truth. It’s not that they don’t want to believe, but they don’t have access to the truth. In order to explain this he mentions some points about the idea of submission or refusing to submit; taslim and inād (تسلیم و عناد ).

• Different Types of Submission

He says there are three types of taslim (تسلیم), very beautiful, sometimes people submit to something, someone or a group with their body, they give in, but physically. For example, imagine two people are fighting, one side realizes that cannot win, he says ok, I give in. This is only physical submission. In his heart he hates the other person and maybe even looks for an opportunity to kill the other person. But sometimes is submission by aql (intellect) and this is when you are convinced, when you know the truth. The third is submission by heart, not only mind because sometimes you know something and your mind is at peace, but your heart still is showing enmity.
Saitan had all this information and he had faith in them theoretically, but the problem was there was no submission in heart. So, what saves someone from kofr? Submission in heart.

• Different Types of Islam

Then, he says we have two types of Islam; real Islam and geographical Islam. Real Islam is something that you have achieved it, you have understood the truth and submitted your mind and heart to the truth, but geographical Islam or inherited Islam is that you are born to a Muslim country or Muslim community, culture, but you are not really submissive. So, he says a geographical or inherited Islam is not that important, what is really important is real Islam and that is when in your heart you are submissive to the truth. So, if someone is open to the truth and accept the truth but for some reasons has not yet found the truth, he is excused and he’s not going to be punished.
The second thing is that ikhlās or sincerity is a condition for acceptance of deeds because sincere intention is very important, but this needs a good discussion. Insha’Allah we continue next week.

• Ḥusn-e-Fī‘lī and Ḥusn-e-Fāī‘lī

He says basically what we have in Islamic ethics and we discuss it in Īlmul Akhlāq and Usūlul Fīqh also is that there are two aspects to what we do; one is the action itself; the physics of the action and the second is the relation between action and the agent. If you remember we said we have Ḥusn-e-Fī‘lī and Ḥusn-e-Fāī‘lī or it can be Qubḥ-e-Fī‘lī and Qubḥ-e- Fāī‘lī. According to Islam you cannot only look at the action, it’s very important to look at the agent, who has done this? And why he has done this? We cannot say just based on what has been done, whether this action is good or bad or how good it is. How much that agent is aware and conscious, it’s very important, then what is his Intention, it’s very important, is he doing this sincerely? Is he doing this for the sake of Allah? Or he’s doing to show off?
So Āyatullāh Mutahharī says: two kind of lines are here, one line that is going through society, history, how history is going to judge about this, it’s mostly about the action, but the other line is the line which is vertical, is this person with this action going to rise and ascend or he is going to Na‘ūdhu-bī-llāh even go lower? So there is a worldly aspect and there is a Malakūtī aspect; the worldly aspect is what we see, there is a construction, there is food, there is home, there is dress, and what is going to do in the life of people. But there is spiritual or Malakūtī aspect and that is that side of the action which is facing Allah (SWT), we don’t want to say that only this part is important, you should do something with good intention, but also something which is good. You cannot destroy life of people and say my intention is sincere, if you are not a qualified doctor, you cannot give prescription to people and say I want to help them, God knows that I am just trying to help them you are not qualified, please don’t help people.

Sunnī and Shī‘a have narrated this Hadith from Prophet Muḥammad (sa) in many different chains of narrations:

«إِنَّمَا الأَعمَالُ بِالنِّیَات»

إِنَّمَا is for Ḥaṣr, actions are only judged or evaluated based on the intentions, it means that you cannot understand the value of action, without knowing the intention; therefore, we cannot many times judge. Allah knows the intention of people. Sometime we may get an idea, there are people that you are sure about their sincerity or lack of sincerity, but many time we don’t know really.

Imam Sādīq (as) said:
“Make your actions for the sake of Allah, not for the sake of people, because whatever is for the sake of Allah is for Allah (SWT), whatever is for the sake of people will not rise, will not ascend towards Allah (SWT)”
Sometimes people think that the action has to be very big, so that it’s really valuable. Āyatullāh Mutahharī says some people, when they hear about this verse:

الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَهُمْ رَاكِعُونَ

“the faithful who maintain the prayer and give the zakat while bowing down”. (Surah al-Mā’da: 55)
This Āyah was reveled when Imam Ali (as) gave his ring when he was in Rukū‘. They say this ring was very expensive and it was equal to the Kharāj of Shām. They don’t understand, they think this Āyah was reveled, because it was very expensive. But he says that ring was not that expensive, what was especial was the sincerity of the giver. He says if you say this about this ring what do you say about this verse:

إِنَّمَا نُطْعِمُكُمْ لِوَجْهِ اللَّـهِ

“[saying,] ‘We feed you only for the sake of Allah”. (Surah al-Īnsān:9)
So he says were for example pieces of gold put in those breads? Do you think the value is because of the physics of the action? No, it’s because of the sincerity, so even giving one piece of bread if it is not with sincerity can be very important.

Now we are moving to the question about non-Muslims; if the agent is doing something for the sake of God, this action can rise, and then he makes reference to this Āyah:

«إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ وَالْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْفَعُهُ»

“To Him ascends the good word, and He elevates righteous conduct” (Surah al-Fātir: 10)
الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ means عقیده[40], proper Aqīda ascends, goes high يَصْعَدُ towards Allah (SWT), in Farsi version it is page 280.
الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ it’s interpreted as Aqāid; proper thoughts, proper ideas, and proper beliefs go higher towards Allah, they rise, they ascend. But الْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْفَعُهُ there are two interpretations; one isالْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ elevates الْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ, the other is الْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ elevates الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ, and I think this one is better. This is very important Āyah, what is rising is Aqīda, what gives lift to Aqīda is Amal al-Sāli; Righteous Conduct. We are more formed by our Aqīda, by our thoughts, and by our intentions. If you want to understand what type of person someone is, you can judge based on the actions, but if you can get into his heart and see whether he’s Mu’min or Kāfīr, or Munāfiq
or whether he’s sincere or not, you can understand him better, so actions are good indicators, but better than actions, thoughts, ideas, and intentions are. Therefore, we are more shaped and formed by our ideas and thoughts than our actions.

فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ

“So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it” (Surah al-Zalzala: 7)
If you have two Kāfīrs, one is only spending on himself, while the other one is giving to other people, not to show off, just loves to share with people, he’s generous.
حاتم طائیwas a Mushrik, but he was generous, it’s appreciated. So, his life in دنیا[47] can be blessed by Allah (SWT), he can enjoy his life in Donyā, more he can have reputation, he can have money, he can have good children, he can have respect, or his ’Adhāb can be reduced, or even his ’Adhāb can be stopped altogether. So it’s very affective, but to be able to rise towards Allah and therefore have access to heaven, because heaven is near Allah, so you cannot deny Allah and go to heaven, but you can be saved from punishment, you can get lots of benefits, therefore we believe that moral action and action which is morally good, is when the action leads to good results and there is sincere intention, even if the intention is not Qurba-tan-ilallāh, still it’s a moral action, but if it is Qurba-tan-ilallāh, it has more value, it can qualify you, to go to heaven, so sincere and good actions of any person, are appreciated. But do these actions qualify them to go to heaven? that’s another issue.
So if a Non-believer does something which is good, has Ḥusn-e-Fī‘lī, but has no intention of deceiving people or showing off, there is sincerity, so it’s appreciated. Allah loves this action, we don’t say it’s equal to the action of a believer who is seeking nearness to Allah, we don’t say it’s equal, but we say this is valuable, it’s appreciated and

إِنَّا لَا نُضِيعُ أَجْرَ مَنْ أَحْسَنَ عَمَلًا

“indeed We do not waste the reward of those who are good in deeds.” (Surah al-Kahf: 30),
would include this as well. Allah is not going to waste the reward of any person who does something good.

• Hadiths Regarding the Role of Intention in Acceptance of Deeds

Then Āyatullāh Mutahharī mentions some Hadiths, in addition to the case of Ḥātam Ṭāīe who was Mushrik from the tribe of Ṭaī, but was very generous and he says in some Hadiths it has been mentioned that Mushrikīn or polytheists like Ḥātam Ṭāīe, they will not be punished or their punishment will be reduced. Then he mentioned some other Hadiths; for example, one Hadith that ‘Allāme Majlesī narrates from Sheikh Ṣadūq in Thawāb-ul-A‘māl from Ali ibn Yaqtīn, from Imam Kāẓim (as). It says among Banī Isrāīel, there was a believer whose neighbor was Kāfir, that Kāfir was always kind to this neighbor who was a believer, when he died, God made a house from clay which would protect him from fire and also gave him food from outside and he was told that this is because of your kindness to your believing neighbor.
It’s the same thing that we said; he would not be punished, he would be safe, because of some good quality or good action.

The Prophet (sa) also is quoted as saying about عبدالله بن جدعان, who was one of the leaders of قریش, that “His punishment in hell would be very light and little”, people asked: “why? Why his punishment is very little?”, Rasūlullāh said: “انه کان یطعم الطعام”; “Because he was feeding people”.

• Final Point by Shahid Mutahhari

Āyatullāh Mutahharī says, “In my opinion if some people are found that they do good things to others, not only they show kindness to human being, but also to someone who has life, human being or animal, because he says, we have this statement: «لکل کبد حراء اجر»“Any liver which is thirsty, if you give water, has Ajr”. Even to a thirsty animal you give water, has Ajr. So he says, if someone shows kindness to a human being or a human being and animal, without expectation, So it’s not that he does to take something from therefore to be receiving something from anyone as a payment Even the reason for showing kindness is not that they don’t want to feel bad, because sometime you would help people, because you don’t want to feel bad, no, really genuine act of kindness. The motivation is not that if I don’t help, one day also I may be in need of help, I become deprived. No, no such considerations. They have such strong motivation for kindness and serving that even if they know they are not going to gain anything from this and even if they know that even one person is not aware and no one is thanking them still they will do this good thing.
He says I believe these people in their hearts they have a light from God and even if they deny God, they really believe in God. We should say in the deep in their soul, there is a light of Ma‘rifa of Allah (SWT) and even if they deny by their tongues, they believe in their hearts. So it’s possible that they will be resurrected not as Kāfir, not as an unbeliever.والله اعلم; God knows it better.

• Conclusion of the Discussion in the Last Two Chapters

So he says based on what we have said in the last two chapters, we can say as a conclusion that all non-Muslims are not the same. You cannot say if you don’t believe in Islam, it doesn’t make any difference, you are all the same. Is this non-Muslim a believer in God and the hereafter or not? This is a question. Is this non-Muslim a person who does good things for his own sake, I mean for the sake of goodness without expectation or not? These make big difference. If we have non-Muslim who is very kind and caring and sympathetic to the oppressed people or weak people even if he is not Muslim, even if he is a non-believer in it makes a big difference. So, there are different factors that we have to observe, but for sure those who believe in God and the hereafter and do good things, they are very close to the idea of situation and this is why the Qur’an invites the people of the book in the way that the Qur’an doesn’t invite mushrekin because these are the people that have faith in God, in the hereafter and do good deed. So Qur’an has a special treatment for them. it’s not like atheist or polytheist and even, of course, atheists who are kind and charitable and they are not like other atheist. So, everything is taken to account.

• Damages to the Moral Status of Good Actions

The next issue is whether disbelief or rejection of the truth can harm your good actions? It’s very important question because some people say good action, we said some people say good action is good action, no matter who is doing it. For example, even if Abū-Jahl and Abū-Lahab do good action, it’s good action. He said yes, husn-e-fe‘lī is something and husn-e-fa‘ilī is something else and for an action to be moral we need both husn-e-fe‘lī and hsn-e- fa‘ilī, goodness of action and goodness of agent; the doer and there are issues in the doer, in the agent, in fa‘il that actually damage the goodness of action. For example, if your intention is to show off, even if you give money, your money, not someone else’s money, to a needy person, but to show off. So, is this action good or not? It has husn-e- fe‘lī, the action is good, but that insincere intention makes it immoral. So don’t be surprise if some conditions of the agent especially rejection of the truth might damage the moral status of the action. Therefore, we want to discuss this issue. For example, first start with something that can apply to all, even believers.

o Reproaches and Affronts

Qur’an says in sura Baqara, verse 264:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تُبْطِلُوا صَدَقَاتِكُم بِالْمَنِّ وَالْأَذَىٰ..

O you who have faith! Do not render your charities void by reproaches and affronts
If you keep reminding that you have done this for them and or you annoyed them mention this in front of other people, damaging their honor and dignity, even if you’re a mu‘min, your sadaqa (charity) becomes useless.

o Resistance Against the Truth

Another thing is to have johūd; to resist against the truth, so even if the truth is known, they don’t accept. Ayatollah Mutahari mentions a hadith form amir-ul mu’minin (a):Al-Islam howa al-taslim; الاسلام هو التسلیم; Islam is to submit yourself to what? Only to principles of religion? No, you have to submit yourself to any truth that is known. Ayatollah Mutahari says Abu-Jahl is an example and God knows how many Abu-Jahl we have everywhere. So, Abu-Jahl knew that the Prophet was honest, but the problem was johūd:

وَجَحَدُوا بِهَا وَاسْتَيْقَنَتْهَا أَنفُسُهُمْ ظُلْمًا وَعُلُوًّا ۚ فَانظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الْمُفْسِدِينَ ﴿١٤﴾

They impugned them, wrongfully and out of arrogance, though they were convinced in their hearts [of their veracity]. So observe how the fate of the agents of corruption was! (An-naml/14)

“وَجَحَدُوا بِهَا وَاسْتَيْقَنَتْهَا أَنفُسُهُمْ ظُلْمًا وَعُلُوًّا”

they didn’t want to admit. In sura Al-Anfāl, verse 32:

إِذْ قَالُوا اللَّـهُمَّ إِن كَانَ هَـٰذَا هُوَ الْحَقَّ مِنْ عِندِكَ فَأَمْطِرْ عَلَيْنَا حِجَارَةً مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ أَوِ ائْتِنَا بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ ﴿٣٢﴾

And when they said, ‘O Allah, if this be the truth from You, rain down upon us stones from the sky, or bring us a painful punishment.’ (32)
these people were so resistant against the truth that they said if you are right kill us, so it means that they preferred over believing and accepting. Then he mentions a hadith from Imam Baqir (a) in kafi, volume 2, page 387. There is a hadith that Muhammad ibn-e-Muslim narrates form Imam Baqir:

“کل شی ء یجره الاقرار و التسلیم فهو الایمان”

what is īman (faith)? Just to believe in God and Quran? No, anything which is result of submitting yourself to the truth, acknowledging the truth is īman.

“و کل شی ء یجره الانکار و الجحود فهو الکفر;

and anything which is caused by rebellion against the truth, rejecting the truth, is kofr” so if another scholar says something and I don’t accept, if another student says something, if my husband, my wife, my friend, my colleague, my neighbor, even if my enemy says something true and I don’t accept, it is kofr because you shouldn’t look at who says, you should look at what is said, truth has its own value if you find the truth.

o Being Indifferent to Truth

He says another problem that can damage your actions is to be indifferent to truth, like people of Kufa in the time of Imam Husain (a) although they knew the truth, but they didn’t support Imam (a) and lady Zaynab (s) when talked to the people of Kufa said: “ یا اهل الکوفه; o people of Kufa” who are people of deception and who lack loyalty.Then at the end she mentioned this point:

“إِنَّمَا مثلكم كَمثل الَّتِي نَقَضَتْ غَزْلَهَا مِن بَعْدِ قُوَّةٍ أنكاثاً ;

your example is like the example of an old lady who used to make thread from cotton and then again putting back, so she was not able to make anything”. So this shows that you can make good actions, but then if you are indifferent to truth and justice your actions can be damaged.

o Self-Admiration

‘ojb, self-admiration is another problem that can affect good actions. من دخله العجب هلکه; if you start admiring yourself more than what is balance of reality, it’s a problem; if you think your good things come from you independently things like that.

o Hypocrisy

Another problem is ria, hypocrisy; lack of sincerity for example, there is a hadith that sometimes a person does something good and his action is in very high position, ‘elīīn, (علیین) but then he comes and tells this to other people, the action comes down, then he comes and tells other people, it comes down then the third time he mentions then it becomes even bad action.
Imam Baqir (a) said:

“إِنَّ الإِبْقَاءَ عَلَى الْعَمَلِ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْعَمَلِ;

to continue and remain with the positive effect of action is more difficult than initiating an action.” The narrator said:

“و من إِبْقَاءَ الْعَمَلِ ؟;

what do you mean by continuing and remaining your action?” Imam (a) said with examples:

“یصل الرجل بصله و ینفق نفقه لله وحده لا شریک له؛ فتکتب له سرا ثم یذکرها فتمحی؛ فتکتب له علانیه ثم یذکرها فتمحی و تکتب له ریاء.;

sometimes a person does something sincerely for example does nafaqah, selerahem or whatever sincerely and it will be registered as good action which is done secretly then he mentions to people then it’s registered as something which is done publicly, then again he mentions this it will be registered as something which is done Riaan to show off.” So it’s not only necessary to have sincerity at the beginning, it’s also important to have sincerity at the end. Many times actually we damage it later. We do something and then later start mentioning, it’s very difficult.

• Qur’anic Perspective on Punishment of Non-Muslims

In Surah al-Nīsā’; chapter 4, verses 97,98, and 99, Allah (SWT) says:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ قَالُوا فِيمَ كُنتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا كُنَّا مُسْتَضْعَفِينَ فِي الْأَرْضِ ۚ قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّـهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا ۚ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ ۖ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا ﴿٩٧﴾إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةً وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًا ﴿٩٨﴾فَأُولَـٰئِكَ عَسَى اللَّـهُ أَن يَعْفُوَ عَنْهُمْ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّـهُ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا ﴿٩٩﴾

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ

Those that angles receive their souls while they were unjust to themselves; they have been doing Ẓulm to themselves, angels would tell them:

قَالُوا فِيمَ كُنتُمْ

Where were you? What were you doing?
It means angels say why were you doing Ẓulm to yourselves?

قَالُوا كُنَّا مُسْتَضْعَفِينَ فِي الْأَرْضِ

They say on the earth in Dunyā we were Mustaḍ‘af we were kept weak, we were not able to function as we liked, we were not able to learn, we were not able to practice, we were not in a good condition.
Then the angels would reply:

قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّـهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا

Wasn’t the land of God expanded enough, so that you can migrate and go to a place that you could live freely? You live and practice freely?
There is no answer! It means that they have no answer, so they could migrate, but they didn’t.

فَأُولَـٰئِكَ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا

Those who were able to live in a better condition, but they didn’t bother, they have no excuse.

إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ

These are real Mustaḍ‘af

لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةً وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًا

Except those who are really Mustaḍ‘af, they have no solution, no way out, they were not able to find any path to move from that condition to a better condition. Then Allah (SWT) says:

فَأُولَـٰئِكَ عَسَى اللَّـهُ أَن يَعْفُوَ عَنْهُمْ

These are the people that Allah is very likely to forgive them,

وَكَانَ اللَّـهُ عَفُوًّا غَفُورًا

Indeed, Allah is very much forgiving.
So you see, we have like three verses here; in the first verse, there is a discussion between angels and the people who are dying while they have been doing Ẓulm to themselves, and the angels say, you have no excuse, because you were able to move to another place, to migrate.
The second verse is about exception, there are people who are excused, because they are really Mustaḍ‘af, they have no choice. And the third is the promise or at least a kind of Bīshārāh ,that there is a great chance, that they will be forgiven. Then Āyatullāh Mutahharī quotes his teacher.
‘Allāme says: “Allah (SWT) has considered ignorance about faith and prohibition of establishing religious rights as Ẓulm.

ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ

What was that Ẓulm? Not knowing faith or not practicing faith.
Divine forgiveness would not reach people who are not learning or not practicing, but مستضعفین who have no power to move to another place or to change the condition of their own environments, so in your place you cannot do anything to improve and you cannot also go to another place, these are excluded.
He says this exceptionإِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ does not need to be only for Mustaḍ‘af who are like this,
This is extremely important, he says not only Īstīḍ‘āf can be for not being able to change the environment or move to another place, also Īstīḍ‘āf can be for a kind of mindset that someone has that; he cannot understand the truth, he cannot think otherwise, he always thinks in a box which is created for him and he thinks there is nothing other than this way of thinking. And this can apply to many people today. It doesn’t occur to them, that Islam might be for example true, or faith in God might be true, so he says:
His mind is not noticing, is not attending to the truth. And therefor he is deprived.

Then Āyatullāh Mutahharī refers to the verse 106 of Surah al-Tawba; for al-Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh, because we said Quran uses Mustaḍ‘af and al-Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh.
In Surah al-Tawba, verse 106 says:

وَآخَرُونَ مُرْجَوْنَ لِأَمْرِ اللَّـهِ إِمَّا يُعَذِّبُهُمْ وَإِمَّا يَتُوبُ عَلَيْهِمْ ۗ وَاللَّـهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ ﴿١٠٦﴾

There is another group that they are left to Allah to decide, either he is going to punish them or he is going to forgive them. And God is knowledgeable and wise.
So theologians have been inspired by this verse to say there is a category of Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh.

• Hadiths Regarding Punishment of Non-Muslims

1. Imam Bāqīr (as) says: in early time after the advent of Islam, there were some people who were Mushrīk they were pagans who had committed crimes, they had killed Ḥamzah, they had killed Ja‘far Ṭayyār and many of Muslims, but then they became Muslims. they became believer in one God; in Allah, but faith had not penetrated into their hearts, so they were Muslim but not Mu’mīn.
Imam Bāqīr (as) says:
“These are Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh, maybe he has killed Ḥamzah, Ja‘far Ṭayyār, now he is not Mu’mīn but not hostile also. So this is to Allah (SWT), Allah may forgive them, and may let them go to heaven”.
1. Imam Sādīq (as) said: Mustaḍ‘afīn are neither Mu’mīn nor Kāfīr, they are Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh.
(ارجاء، یرجی، ارجاءاً) means to delay, it is not from رجاء[30], Raj ā’ means hope, but this means to delay, means to leave it to Allah (SWT), we don’t judge about them and we leave it to Allah (SWT).
2. In Kāfī, there is a Hadith that Zurārīh went to see Imam Bāqīr (as). He says I told Imam Bāqīr (as): “we have a kind of measure, whoever is complying with this measure, means whoever is Shī‘a and believes in your Imāmah, then we choose him as our friends, as our اولیاء[32], as our brothers, and whoever is not fitting with this measure we distance ourselves from them and we do برائه[33] from them”. So Zurārīh said to Imam Bāqīr (as) that basically anyone who is your follower we take him as our friends and otherwise we distance ourselves from them.
Then Imam Bāqīr (as) said: “O Zurārīh! Is your word more truthful or Allah’s words? If what you say is correct what about Allah’s word

إِلَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ حِيلَةً وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ سَبِيلًا ﴿٩٨﴾ (Surah al-Nisa)

What do you say about this Āyah? Because according to your measure either people are with us or we distance ourselves from them. What about Mustaḍ‘afīn? What about al-Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh? What about خَلَطُوا عَمَلًا صَالِحًا وَآخَرَ سَيِّئًا? there are people who have good actions, but also have bad actions; Not hundred percent good, not hundred percent bad. What about أَصْحَابُ الْأَعْرَافِ? What about الْمُؤَلَّفَةِ قُلُوبُهُمْ?”

3. In Kāfī there is a Hadith from Imam Mūsa bīn Ja’far (as), in which he says: “Imam Ali (as) is a gate of guidance. Whoever enters through this gate is a Mu’mīn, whoever goes out through this gate is Kāfīr, but whoever neither enters, nor goes out, these are Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh”.

• Explaining Some Other Hadiths With Different Approach

Then he quotes from al-Kāfī; Kītāb al-Ḥujjah, some Hadiths that might be misunderstood, if people only take these Hadiths and not other Hadiths together, they may come with a kind of misconception. For example, we have Hadith that:

«كُلُّ مَنْ دَانَ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ بِعِبَادَةٍ يُجْهِدُ فِيهَا نَفْسَهُ وَ لَا إِمَامَ لَهُ مِنَ اللَّهِ فَسَعْيُهُ غَيْرُ مَقْبُولٍ»

“Whoever worships Allah (SWT) and even makes himself tired; he does lots of Ībādah and exhausts himself by doing Ībādah, but he has no Imam from God, means Imam which is appointed by God, his efforts are not accepted”. Or

«لَا یَقْبَلُ اللهُ اَعْمَالَ الْعِبَادِ اِلَّا بِمَعْرِفَتِه»

“Allah would not accept the actions of servants, except with the Ma‘rīfa of Imam”.
So some people may think, so it means those who don’t know Imam definitely nothing is going to be accepted whether they are Mustaḍ‘af or not, whether they had access or not, but he says you have to read all the Hadiths, in the same Kītāb al-Ḥujjah in Kāfī, Imam Sādīq (as) says:

«مَنْ عَرَّفَنَا کَان مُؤمِناً، وَ مَنْ اَنْکَرَنَا کَان کَافِراً، وَ مَنْ لَمْ یَعْرِفُنَا وَ لَم یُنْکِرُنَا کَانَ ضَالّاً حَتَّی رَجَعَ اِلَی الْهُدَی …، فَاِنْ یَمُتْ عَلیَ ضَلَالَتِه یَفْعَلُ اللهُ مَا یَشَاء»

“Whoever knows us is a Mu’mīn, and whoever rejects us is Kāfīr, and the one who doesn’t believe in us and doesn’t reject us, he is just Ḍāll, till he returns to guidance, so if he dies in that condition, Allah decides about him”.
In Kāfī there is a section Kītāb al-Īmān and al-Kufr, in that section, there is a chapter, that with Īmān, no action harms, and with Kufr, no action benefits. But Āyatullāh Mutahharī says: Unlike the title, if you read the Rīwāyāt you see this is not confirmed in the Rīwāyāt, so if you just read the title of this chapter, you think if you don’t have Īmān, it’s not going to work. But it’s not like that; For example, there is Hadith, Ya‘qūb ibn Shu‘aib says: “I asked Imam Sādīq (as)”, look at the way Āyatullāh Mutahharī interprets the Hadith:

«هَلْ لِاَحَدٍ عَلَی مَا عَمِلَ ثَوابٌ عَلَی اللهِ مُوجِبٌ إلَّا الْمُؤْمِنِین؟»

“Has anyone a right for reward over God? The God most reward him except Mu’mīnīn?”
Means it’s obligatory for God to reward, because of the action, except Mu’mīnīn? Imam says: “No”.
Some people have thought it means that Allah is not going to reward except Mu’mīnīn, but Āyatullāh Mutahharī says: No, the point is Mūjab, being obligatory, because for Mu’mīnīn Allah has promised that He is going to reward them, for Mustaḍ‘afūn Allah said He may forgive them, He has not promised , but He says, He is very forgiving.
So these are very subtle points. It is not every one can understand this Hadith, it needs someone like ‘Allāme Tabātabāī, Āyatullāh Mutahharī. So Imam wants to say that other than Mu’mīnīn these are Mustaḍ‘afūn. These are Murjawna lī-’Amrīllāh and still Allah may reward them.
So, Alḥamdulillāh, we finish this part, there is one part left, ĪnshāAllāh we can finish it in another session.

• Viewpoint of Muslim Philosophers about Punishment of Non-Muslims

• Viewpoint of Avicenna

Now let’s see how Muslim philosophers have said. Avicenna in the seventh section of al-Ishārāt vat-Tanbihāt says in the same way that people with respect to their body and the beauty of body are three groups, with respect to their soul and spirituality are also three groups. For body, we have people who are perfect in their body whether it be about health and beauty, very beautiful, very healthy and fit. We have people who have serious problem with their body or with their appearance; and people who are in between; they are not most beautiful, but not also ugly, they are not most healthy, but not also very ill, in between and Avicenna says that actually those who the average are the majority. He says the same thing is true about soul and spirituality. There are people who are very interested in truth and there are people who are hostile towards the truth and there is an average, a middle group who are not very thirsty for truth, but who are not also enemy of the truth and he says these are the majority of people and he says these are the people who have not found and have not discovered the truth, but if the truth is presented to them, they would not refuse to accept. So Ayatollah Mutahary says we can say according to Avicenna, although this people cannot be classified legally from fiqhi (Jurisprudential) point of view as Muslims, but with respect to the truth, they are Muslim because they accept the truth if they find it. Then Avicenna says something very beautiful, he says: “wastawsi‘ rahmatallah; واستوسع رحمه الله” He says when it comes to the Mercy of Allah, you must consider it as great as inclusive.

• Viewpoint of Mullā Sadrā

Then Mullā Sadrā in his famous book, al-Asfār, has a discussion about good and evil and there he says if someone says how you believe that good overweighs and is dominant over shar, over badness or evil, you say this world is more filled with goodness than badness while when we look at human beings who are the best of creature have lots of bad actions, lots of false Aqaid (belief) and therefor, many of them they don’t have happiness in ākhirah (the hereafter), many of them deserve punishment. So if this is a case with human being that most of them are not going to go to heaven, how can then you say the whole world is the world in which goodness prevails?
He says people of the Hereafter with respect to their prosperity and happiness are like people of this world with respect to their health and beauty. In the same way that people who have problem with their beauty and health or people who are extremely beautiful and healthy are not the majority in the hereafter also the people who are not the best, the purest and the people who are vicious are not the majority and there is an average which is majority and these people would have still happiness and salvation and then Mullā Sadrā tries to use two Qur’anic terms to refer to the best and the average which are good but not the best. He says that in sura Al-Waqi‘a, verse 10, the Qur’an says:

وَالسَّابِقُونَ السَّابِقُونَ ﴿١٠﴾ أُولَـٰئِكَ الْمُقَرَّبُونَ ﴿١١﴾

And the Foremost Ones are the foremost ones: (10) they are the ones brought near [to Allah], (11)
“Assābequn”; those who proceed others are not majority. Then we have ashab-ol-yamin; اصحاب الیمین and ashabo-osh-shemal; اصحاب الشمال. ashab-osh-shemal are vicious people who are the lowest group. So assābequn on the top, ashab-osh-shemal in the bottom, in between we have ashab-ol-yamin, the people of the right side and right hand and these are the average. So Mullā Sadrā believes ashab-ol-yamin are the majority and these are the people who are not perfect. They have issues, they have short comings, but still have prosperity and happiness in the hereafter and then he says a very important statement he says:

“ فلأهل الرحمة والسلامة الغلبة في النشئتين;

wa le ahl war-rahma was-salamah ghalabaton fen-nash’atain”; for the people of mercy and safety, there is ghalabah means they have majority in both worlds.
Ayatollah Mutahhari says Muslim philosopher want to say although those who embrace Islam or embrace faith might be not majority, but there are people who have Islam in their fitrah and these are the majority and they will be resurrected with this Islam in their fitrah. So many people who are not believers in dunyā in the way that we expect in the akhirah they may be resurrected as believers.

• Sins of Muslims

The next issue is about sins of Muslims. The question is if Muslims or Shiites commit sins what happens? There is a misconception that some people think just because they are Muslims or because they are Shia, their sins would not be leading towards punishment, they are not questioned. For example some people say if our sins and sins of those who are not from us are going to be questioned so what’s the point? What’s the difference between a believer and non-believer, between Shia and non-Shia? They think they are Muslim or they are Shia and their treatment should be different otherwise what’s the point? Or they quote a hadith which says:

حُبُّ عَلِیٍّ عَلَیْهِ السَّلَامُ حَسَنَةٌ، لَا یَضُرُّ مَعَهَا سَیِّئَةٌ[1]

Love for Ali-ibn-e-Abitalib is a good deed that with that no sin would harm.”
So they say according to this hadith if you believe in Ali-ibn-e-Abitalib, if you are Shia, then your sins would not be harming you, so this is what some people say.
Ayatollah Mutahari says with respect to the first thing that what’s the difference between Shia or non-Shia, believer or non-believer? The difference is not in name, the difference has to have a reality, not a name or claim. If you have accepted and acted upon the plan for life which prophets and Imams have presented, then you are their followers, then you would be different from those who don’t believe because they have not acted upon them, but if you don’t act upon them and others also don’t act upon them just because your name is a Shia or Muslim, it’s not making a difference.
A person went to Imam Sadiq (a), he was a companion of Imam Sadiq (a), he said: “some of your Shia have deviated they have considered some of the haram things as halal means they have permitted some of the harams and they say religion is only to know Imam, if you know Imam that’s enough.” Imam Sadiq (a) after hearing this said: “innā lillāh wa innā ilaihi rāji’oon

; انا لله و انا الیه راجعون”

.These people who don’t believe have used their own opinion to interpret Islam. What is true is you must have ma‘rifa (knowing) and then after having ma‘rifa do whatever you want means whatever you want from acts of obedience because this would be accepted.
Imam Baqir (a) said:

“مَا تُنَالُ وَلاَيَتُنَا إِلاَّ بِالْعَمَلِ وَ اَلْوَرَع;

our wilāya would not be reached except with practice and piety”.

• Real Relation Between Sins and Punishment in the Hereafter

Then he has a discussion about difference between two types of conditions. He says sometimes conditions are based on contract or agreement or a law that we pass, but sometimes condition are real, for example you want to be employed in an office, they say one condition for employment is that you should have citizenship of this country. So if you have all the qualifications and experience, but you don’t have citizenship, they don’t give you this job, so you can apply for citizenship and after you get the citizenship you can be employed. It was a legal requirement and that legal requirement had to be met, but nothing in your reality and character has changed. He says but going to heaven is not like this. It’s not that you can just change your documents or apply for a name of Muslim or Shia or mu‘min and say we can sort out the problem. The qualification which are needed are real, you have to become a real mu‘min. It’s not just based on agreement and legal requirements. If you follow a true leader, you are with him. If you follow a false leader or bad leader you are with him, no matter what you call yourself, no matter what blood relation you have. Qur’an says:

“فَمَن تَبِعَنِي فَإِنَّهُ مِنِّي;

whoever follows me, he is from me”[ Ibrahim/36]. Rasūllullā said:

“سَلْمانُ مِنّا أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ”

Salman was not an Arab or Sayed, but Rasūllullā said he was from us.

• Conclusion

So as a conclusion and the book is coming to end he makes few points:
1. Happiness and lack of happiness have different levels. It’s not that all who have happiness and felicity are in the same rank or level or those who would be in the same position.
2. Some people may go to heaven from the beginning, some people may go to hell and then they go heaven. So, it’s possible that a Muslim or a Shia, a believer because of their sins might be punished in duyā or time of death or barzakh or have difficulties in the Day of Judgment, but they go finally to heaven or even they may go to hell for some time, then they finally go to heaven if they die with īman.
3. Those who do not believe in God and the hereafter and they don’t do anything in order to get closer to Allah (swt) so they are not moving towards Allah (swt).
4. Those who believe in Allah and the hereafter and do things in order to get closer to Allah (swt) and have sincerity, they deserve heaven whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims.
5. Non-Muslims who believe in God and the hereafter and do good things sincerely, then because they don’t act according to the plan of Islam so they don’t get the all benefits, but still their good actions would be accepted because they can have good actions which comply with the plan of God, with the prescriptions of God like doing Ihsan; charitable work, benevolent work.
6. A good action which is accepted, whether it’s done by Muslim or non-Muslim, might become then a subject to problems that may damage it; the problems like rejecting the truth, arrogance, lacking fairness. So, a good action can be affected by these problems. We had discussion about this before.
7. Muslims or other believer in tawhīd, monotheism, if they become sinful and betray Allah’s religion they also deserve punishment. It’s even likely that because of some great sins, they might permanently in hell even if they are themselves believers, like if you kill a believer deliberately.
8. Good actions of the people who have no faith in God and the hereafter or they associate partners to God if they have genuinely in good actions may reduce their punishment or stop their punishment.
9. Happiness or lack of happiness in the hereafter are based on real conditions. Those conditions are not based on our contracts or decisions.
10. Those actions that have husn-e-fe‘li and husn-e-fā‘eli are considered as amal-e-sāleh, righteous deed are not accepted. So, husn-e-fe‘li, goodness of the action and husn-e-fā‘eli, goodness of the agent both are needed.
11. Those verses and hadiths that indicate the actions of those who deny nobowah or Imamah (prophethood or Imamate) are not accepted should be understood that they refer to the people who have biasness against the truth, those who reject the truth, not those who have not found and discovered the truth. Such people who have not found out the truth are mustaz‘af or murjawna-le-amrillāh.
12. According to Muslim philosophers like Avicenna or Sadr-ol-muta‘alehin the majority of the people who may not know the truth qāsir, not muqasir; they are not guilty, they are not against or hostile towards the truth so even if they don’t believe in God, they would not be punished, however, they won’t go to heaven either. And if they believe in God and the hereafter and have righteous deed, their reward will be given. The only people who would be suffering are the people who are muqasir, not qāsir; those who are guilty, not just ignorant.