Question 659 - The Enlightening Answer Across the Ether, Vol 7

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 peace. ‘Qaf. By the Glorious Quran. But they marvel that a warner from among them has come to them, so the disbelievers say, “This is a remarkable thing”’ [Qaf 50:1–2]. I have explained that the disconnected letters indicate Allah’s vicegerents in His earth. Thus, the meaning of ‘Qaf. By the Glorious Quran’ is: Allah’s vicegerent and the knowledge; or the messenger and the message; or the prophet and prophethood; or the progeny and the Quran, concerning which the Messenger of Allah (s) made his testament. All these statements correctly apply to Qaf and the Quran. The Quran is described as glorious because it is a divine message, so its glory is from the glory of the One who sent it, Glorious is He. The knowledge of Allah’s vicegerents is glorious knowledge because it is attributed to their Teacher, Allah, Glorious and Exalted. As for the marveling of those who disbelieve in Allah’s vicegerents, it is that they do not accept Allah’s vicegerents because they do not come with miraculous attributes that compel them to believe. They consider the coming of a human being who does not possess extraordinary attributes as a messenger to be remarkable. Consequently, they regard Allah’s vicegerents as merely people like themselves, with no merit over them and no value to their statement that they are messengers of Allah. It is not necessary for those who disbelieve in Allah’s vicegerents to say with their tongues, ‘This is a remarkable thing.’ They always say it through their confrontation of the one sent. They demand that the one sent come with extraordinary attributes, otherwise he is not sent according to these inverted people, because they regard him as a human being like all people: he eats, drinks, becomes ill, forgets, and consequently they marvel that Allah’s vicegerent or the Imam could have these attributes. They do not accept him even if some miracles accompany him, which the wrongdoers explain away-like the staff of Moses, which they called sorcery, saying Moses was a sorcerer more capable than the sorcerers. They do not accept any miracle that comes with the one sent and is related to them by those who saw it and believed in it. Rather, they propose that the one sent possess miraculous attributes that compel them to believe. In truth, they are merely liars who do not seek faith; otherwise, the miracles that occurred and that people relate to them would have sufficed them. Rather, they seek to deny the one sent: since he does not fulfill their desires through miracles they propose that would compel them to believe, he is a liar; and since he does not possess miraculous attributes that compel everyone who sees him to believe, he is a liar. This was their condition with Allah’s messengers, with the Messenger Muhammad (s), and with the Imams (a), just as it is the condition of the inverted people with the First Mahdi today. They do not accept that the Proof could be as Imam al-Rida (a) described him: ‘The Imam is supported by the Holy Spirit, and between him and Allah is a pillar of light in which he sees the deeds of the servants. Whenever he needs it as an indication, he is informed of it: it is extended to him and he knows, and it is withdrawn from him and he does not know. The Imam is born and begets children; he is healthy and becomes ill; he eats, drinks, urinates, defecates, marries, sleeps, forgets, errs, rejoices, grieves, laughs, weeps, lives, dies, is buried and visited, is resurrected, made to stand, presented, questioned, rewarded, honored, and granted intercession. His indication lies in two qualities: knowledge and the answering of supplication. Whatever he reports of events that will occur before they happen is through a covenant entrusted to him from the Messenger of Allah (s), which he inherited from his fathers, from him (a), and it is of what Gabriel (a) entrusted to him from the Knower of the unseen, Mighty and Majestic …’ (^[2]). They are exactly like Iblis, their true imam, whom their wicked souls worship. They do not want Allah’s proof to be a human being from among them. Rather, they accept none but Allah as a proof over them. Through their demands they say: ‘We do not accept any human being as a proof over us; we want no proof except Allah,’ exactly like the statement of Iblis. Yet Allah’s vicegerent is a human being, and a human being forgets, errs, eats, and drinks. One who eats and drinks must expel toxins, and one who eats must sleep. The Proof is a human being and has a specific weight, so rocks cannot break beneath his feet every time he walks upon them, nor can his weight fail to affect soft ground every time he walks upon it. The Proof has a material body, and a material body must cast a shadow, so the Proof cannot always be without a shadow. The Proof, or Allah’s vicegerent, is a human being who works and learns how to practice his work. At times he learns from other people, as Jesus learned carpentry, Muhammad learned trade, and Muhammad learned from Salman how to dig the trench. At other times Allah teaches him what people do not know. But they do not want this; rather, they want Allah’s proof to know everything. They want him to be knowledge containing no ignorance, and this belongs to none but Allah, Glorious is He. They want Allah’s proof to possess vast wealth that comes to him from heaven and not to need what is in the earth, work therein, or the khums and charitable contributions by which he upholds Allah’s religion. ‘Pharaoh called out among his people, saying, “O my people, does not the dominion of Egypt belong to me, with these rivers flowing beneath me? Do you not see? Or am I not better than this contemptible one who can scarcely express himself? Why, then, have bracelets of gold not been cast upon him, or angels come with him in procession?” Thus he belittled his people, and they obeyed him. Indeed, they were an ungodly people. When they angered Us, We took retribution from them and drowned them all. We made them a precedent and an example for later peoples’ [al-Zukhruf 43:51–56]. In every statement these people make and every demand they make, you find evidence that they are followers of Iblis. He used to say: ‘How remarkable that Adam should be Allah’s vicegerent when he is made of clay and possesses no miraculous attributes that compel others to believe’: ‘He said, “I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay”’ [Sad 38:76]. They repeat his statement in other words. You find them saying: ‘How remarkable that Allah’s vicegerent should be like us and cast a shadow!’ ‘How remarkable that Allah’s vicegerent should be like us, that his body should have a limited weight, and that he should not always affect stone whenever he walks upon stone!’ ‘How remarkable that Allah’s vicegerent should be like other people, have a specific weight, and affect soft ground like anyone else!’ Thus they set down their foolishness in every age, so that they become an instance of His words, the Exalted: ‘But they marvel that a warner from among them has come to them, so the disbelievers say, “This is a remarkable thing”’ [Qaf 50:2]. Their result will be the disgraceful result of the nations that preceded them in following the footsteps and method of Iblis in denying and fighting the messengers: ‘He will say, “Enter among nations of jinn and humans that passed away before you into the Fire.” Whenever a nation enters, it curses its sister, until, when they have all caught up with one another therein, the last of them will say of the first of them, “Our Lord, these are the ones who led us astray, so give them a double punishment of the Fire.” He will say, “For each is double, but you do not know”’ [al-A‘raf 7:38]. Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.