Question 113 - The Enlightening Answer Across the Ether, Vol 2

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, the Imams and the Mahdis, and grant them abundant peace. Yes, the Holy Spirit is a Helper, and an excellent Helper, but for those who seek Allah’s help with sincerity and freedom from the ego so that they may know the truth from the Truth, Glorious and Exalted. I, the poor, ignorant servant, have always said: Whoever wants the truth should ask Allah and know it from Allah. As for fighting to spread the true divine religion in every age, it proceeded from Allah’s prophets and messengers (a). Their command is Allah’s command because they act by Allah’s command. They do not act according to their desires or opinions; rather, they want and will only what Allah, Glorious and Exalted, wills. As a Christian, do you not believe that Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and Solomon-peace from Allah be upon them-were prophets sent by Allah, Glorious is He? Read history and the Old Testament and you will see that Allah commanded them to fight the disbelievers, conquer the Holy Land, build the Temple, and spread the true divine religion of their time. Did Jesus (a) not say that whoever wished to follow him should carry his cross with him? What do you think he meant by this? Do you think he meant that one who followed him and the truth he brought from Allah, Glorious is He, should surrender to those who disbelieved in him and the truth so they could kill and crucify him? Or did the words, ‘Whoever wishes to follow me should carry his cross with him,’ mean revolution against disbelief, oppression, and tyranny? (^[264]). As for Jesus (a) not actually fighting the leaders of disbelief, misguidance, and tyranny-whether the Jewish scholars who did not act or the Romans-fighting requires equipment and numbers, and Jesus (a) had neither. Who believed in him, and how many were prepared to ransom him with their lives? Answer this question and you will find that Jesus (a) had no recourse except to Allah, Glorious is He, to raise him to Himself. Did Jesus (a) not ask those who claimed to believe in him to refuse to pay tribute-taxes-to Caesar? Did they refuse? If they forsook him in this, their forsaking him in battle is clearer and more evident. You must view the prophets’ calls objectively. Jesus (a) not fighting Allah’s enemies with the sword does not mean that the prophets who fought Allah’s enemies with the sword were false-far exalted are they above that; may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon them. I have said in more than one place in what I previously wrote (^[265]): Jesus’s call to Allah, Glorious and Exalted, had particular characteristics and surrounding circumstances that made it one of the most difficult divine calls. Jesus (a) did not confront a people who worshipped stone idols or disbelieved in Allah. Rather, he confronted a people who claimed to be monotheists believing in Allah and His prophets. He confronted the Jewish scholars who did not act, who displayed righteousness and gave the people the impression that they were the heirs of the former dispatched prophets (a), while at the same time accommodating the pagan Romans occupying the Holy Land. Jesus (a) came to confront these misguided misguiders while the people regarded them as righteous religious scholars representing Moses (a) and the prophets (a). There was no way to expose them and make their corruption and misguidance clear except through Jesus’s (a) renunciation and the tragedy of the crucifixion, which clarified and exposed the hardness of their hearts and their distance from the divine mercy they claimed to represent. This concerns the prophets (a). If you want a fuller treatment of this issue, read Jihad, the Gate of Paradise. As for the rest of the people who were not illuminated by the light of a prophet or vicegerent and consequently filled the earth with oppression and injustice, they are Satan’s product and Satan’s workers. You therefore find them fighting desperately to preserve Satan’s kingdom and evil on this earth, each in his own way. One who knows the reality pleasing to Allah knows that the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman empires, which claimed to represent Muhammad (s) and Islam, were nothing but satanic states and represented only Satan. They had no connection to Muhammad (s) and Islam except to the extent that this served the interests of their tyrannical, pharaonic rulers-may Allah curse them-exactly like America and Bush today, and like al-Qaeda-the base of Satan-and the murderous criminals organized beneath its banner, the banner of Satan, may Allah curse him.