The Greater Striving Precedes the Lesser Striving

The Greater Striving Precedes the Lesser Striving

One of the most important aims of striving is to free people from servitude to the earth, people, and the ego, and to bring them into servitude to God, the One, the All-Subduing, and to acknowledge His sovereignty and submit to His authority in matters of legislation and governance within society through the vicegerent of God on the earth.

The first battle of striving revolves around this divine law: the vicegerency of God on the earth. It is the primary law that determines whether obedience is accepted or rejected. God said: “When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am placing a vicegerent on the earth.’ They said, ‘Will You place someone therein who will cause corruption and shed blood while we declare Your praises and sanctify You?’ He said, ‘I know what you do not know.’”^[17]

As a result, “the angels all prostrated, except the Devil;^[18] he refused, grew arrogant, and became one of the disbelievers.”^[19]

The angels were victorious in this battle, while the Devil-may God curse him-lost. The striving in that battle was of the higher order: the striving of the self, or as the Messenger of God called it, the greater striving.

Therefore, one must begin with the greater striving before moving on to the lesser striving. Nevertheless, the lesser striving is one of the most important components of the greater striving.

Some people may mistakenly think that the lesser striving precedes the greater striving based on the narration of God’s Messenger, when he welcomed the returning fighters from the battlefield and said: “Welcome to a people that has completed the lesser striving while the greater striving still remains.”

However, what the Messenger of God intended to clarify in this narration is that physical striving (the lesser striving) may come to an end, whereas the striving of the soul (the greater striving) continues for as long as a person remains in this worldly life. Physical striving itself is only a response to the striving of the soul, since the body follows the soul and acts according to its will.

Those fighters had already begun the greater striving [against the self] before setting out for the lesser striving [of battle] and returning from it [after the fighting ended]. The Messenger of God reminded them that, so long as they remained in this worldly life, they must continue striving against their own selves lest they fall into what the Devil (may God curse him) fell into: denying the vicegerent of God on the earth, the outcome of which is manifest loss.

God said: “Do people think that they will be left to say, ‘We believe,’ and they will not be tested? Indeed, We tested those before them, so that God may make evident those who are truthful and those who are liars.”^[20]

Indeed, many of them ended up denying the vicegerent of God on the earth, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and so failed in the battle of the greater striving. Therefore, the lesser striving, or rather, mere physical fighting, did not benefit them.

A person must beware of the trial of God, strive against his own self, and follow the vicegerent of God on His earth; otherwise, the Fire awaits him. There is no striving except under the banner of God’s guardian and vicegerent on His earth. Whoever claims to strive and seeks martyrdom under another banner only hastens his death in this world before the death of the Hereafter.

Aban ibn Taghlib said: When there was mention of people being killed on the frontier, Imam Abu Abdullah would say: “Woe to them, why are they doing that? They are hastening death in this world and in the Hereafter. By God, the only martyrs are our followers, even if they die on their beds.”^[21]

Therefore, a person must first engage in the battle of the greater striving, recognize the guardian of God and His vicegerent on His earth, and then engage in the battle of the lesser striving under his banner so that his striving may be pleasing to God and an act of obedience to Him. Otherwise, he is like cattle, or rather even further astray, because he is either fighting for land, like an atheist fighting for his land or an animal defending its den, or he is fighting for a creed he does not understand, blindly following dysfunctional scholars. Then, after his death, when he is dragged into the Fire, he realizes that those scholars had led him into war against Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, or Imam al-Mahdi.

The Commander of the Faithful said: “Striving is one of the doors of Paradise that God has opened for His chosen supporters.”^[22] That is, God’s supporters are the true strivers. Not everyone who fights is a striver and a supporter of God, as some people imagine. The supporters of God are those who strove against themselves, engaged in the greater striving, and followed God’s guardian and vicegerent on the earth. In doing so, they truly became God’s chosen supporters and thus became worthy of having the door of striving opened to them as one of the doors to Paradise.