The Greater Jihad

The Greater Jihad
Knowledge of the hereafter

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Yet another year of our lives has passed. You young people are advancing toward old age, and we old people toward death. During this academic year you have become aware of the extent of your learning and study. You know how much you have acquired and how high the edifice of your education has been raised. However, with respect to moral refinement, the acquisition of religious manners, divine teachings and purification of the soul, what have you done? What positive steps have you taken? Have you had any thought of refinement or self- reformation? Have you had any program in this field?

Unfortunately, I must submit that you have not done anything striking, and have not taken any great steps with regard to the reformation and refinement of the self.

Recommendations for the Seminaries Of Religious Learning

Simultaneous with the study of scholarly matters, the centers of religious learning are in need of teaching and learning in morals and spirituality. It is necessary to have moral guides, trainers for the spiritual faculties, and sessions for advice and counseling. Programs in ethics and moral reform classes in manners and refinement, instruction in divine teaching, which is the principle aim of the mission of the prophets, Peace be upon them, must be officially instituted in the seminaries.

Unfortunately, scant attention is paid in the centers of learning to these essential issues. Spiritual studies are declining, so that in the future, it is feared, the seminaries might not be able to train scholars of ethics, refined and polished counselors, or godly men. Occupation with discussion and inquiry into elementary problems does not allow the opportunity for the basic and fundamental topics attended to by the Noble Quran and of the great Prophet (peace be upon him and his household) and the other prophets and saints (awliya'), Peace be with them. The eminent jurist consults and high-ranking professors, who are noteworthy in the scholarly community, had better try, in the course of their lessons and discussions, to train and refine people and to be more concerned with spiritual and ethical topics. For the seminary students it is also necessary that in their efforts to acquire higher virtues and refinement of the soul that they give sufficient weight to their important duties and momentous responsibilities.

Recommendations for the Seminary Students

You who today are studying in these seminaries, and who shall tomorrow take charge of the leadership and guidance of society, do not imagine that your only duty is to learn a handful of terms, for you have other duties as well. In these seminaries you must build and train yourselves so that when you go to a city or village you will be able to guide the people there and show them refinement. It is expected that when you depart from the center for the study of religious law, you yourselves will be refined and cultivated, so that you will be able to cultivate the people and train them according to Islamic ethical manners and precepts. If, God forbid, you were not to reform yourselves in the center of learning, and you were not to realize spiritual ideals, then-may Allah protect us-everywhere you went, people would be perverted, and you would have given them a low opinion of Islam and of the clergy.

You have a heavy responsibility. If you do not fulfill your duty in the seminaries, if you do not plan your refinement, and if you merely pursue the learning of a few terms and issues of law and jurisprudence, then God protects us from the damage that you might cause in the future to Islam and Islamic society. It is possible-may Allah protect us-for you to pervert and mislead the people. If due to your actions, deeds and unfair behavior, one person loses his way and leaves Islam, you would be guilty of the greatest of the major sins, and it would be difficult for your repentance to be accepted. Likewise, if one person finds guidance, then according to a narration "it is better than all that the sun doth shine upon."1

Your responsibility is very heavy. You have duties other than those of the laity. How many things are permissible for the laity, which are not allowed for you, and may possibly be forbidden! People do not expect you to perform many permissible deeds, to say nothing of low unlawful deeds, which if you were to perform them, God forbid, people would form a bad opinion of Islam and of the clerical community.

The trouble is here: if the people witness your actions as contrary to what is expected, they become deviated from religion. They turn away from the clergy, not from an individual. If only they would turn away from one person and form a low opinion of just that person!

But if they see an unbecoming action contrary to decorum on the part of a single cleric, they do not examine it and analyze it, that at the same time that among businessmen there are unrighteous and perverted people, and among office workers corruption and ugly deeds may be seen, it is possible that among the clergy there is also one or a few impious or deviant persons. Hence, if a grocer does something wrong, it is said that such and such a grocer is a wrongdoer. If a druggist is guilty of an ugly deed, it is said that such and such a druggist is an evildoer. However, if a preacher performs an unbecoming act, it is not said that such and such a preacher is deviant, it is said that preachers are bad! The responsibilities of the learned are very heavy; the 'ulama have more duties than other people.

If you review the chapters related to the responsibilities of the 'ulama in Usul al-Kafi and Wasail2 you will see how they describe the heavy responsibilities and serious obligations of the learned. It is narrated that when the soul reaches the throat, there is no longer any chance for repentance, and in that state one's repentance will not be accepted, although God accepts the repentance of the ignorant until the last minute of their lives3. In another narration it is reported that seventy sins will be forgiven of one who is ignorant before one sin is forgiven of an 'alim4.

This is because the sin of an 'alim is very harmful to Islam and to Islamic society. If a lay and ignorant person commits a sin, he only wins misfortune for himself. However, if an 'alim becomes deviant, if he becomes involved in ugly deeds, he perverts an entire world ('alam). He has injured Islam and the 'ulama' of Islam5. There is also a narration according to which the people of hell suffer from the stench of an 'alim whose deeds to not accord with his knowledge6. For this very reason, in this world there is a great difference between an 'alim and an ignorant person with regard to benefit and injury to Islam and to the Islamic community. If an 'alim is deviant, it is possible that the community will become infected by deviation. And if an 'alim is refined, and he observes the morality and manners of Islam, he will refine and guide the community.

In some of the towns to which I went during the summer, I saw that the people of a town were well mannered with religious morals. The point is this, that they had an 'alim who was righteous and pious. If an 'alim who is pious and righteous lives in a community, town or state, his very existence will raise the refinement and guidance of the people of that realm, even if he does not verbally propagate and guide7. We have seen people whose existence causes lessons to be learned, merely seeing them and looking at them raises one's awareness.

At present in Tehran, about which I have some information, the neighborhoods differ from one another. Neighborhoods in which a pure and refined 'alim lives have righteous people with strong faith. In another neighborhood where a corrupt deviant person wears the turban, and has become the prayer leader, and set up shop, you will see that the people there have been misled, and have been polluted and perverted. This is the same pollution from the stench of which the people of hell suffer. This is the same stench which the evil 'alim, the 'alim without action, the perverted 'alim has brought in this world, and the smell of it causes the people of hell to suffer.

It is not because something is added to him there; that which occurs to this 'alim in the next world is something which has been prepared in this world. Nothing is given to us except that which we have done. If an 'alim is corrupt and evil, he corrupts the society, although in this world we are not able to smell the stench of it. However, in the next world the stench of it will be perceived. But a lay person is not able to bring such corruption and pollution into the Islamic society. A lay person would never allow himself to proclaim that he was an Imam or the Mahdi, to proclaim himself a prophet, or to have received revelation. It is a corrupt 'alim who corrupts the world: "If an 'alim is corrupt, a world ('alam) is corrupted."8

The Importance of the Refinement and Purification of the Soul

Those who have constructed (their own) religions, causing the straying and deviation of masses of peoples, have for the most part been scholars. Some of them even studied and disciplined themselves in the centers of learning9. The head of one of the heretical sects studied in these very seminaries of ours. However, since his learning was not accompanied by refinement and purification, since he did not advance on the path toward God, and since he did not remove the pollution from himself, he bore the fruit of ignominy.

If man does not cast pollution from the core of his soul, not only will whatever studying and learning he does be of no benefit by itself, rather it will actually be harmful. When knowledge enters in this evil center, the product will be evil, root and branch, an evil tree. However much these concepts are accumulated in a black impure heart, there will be greater obscurity. In a soul which is unrefined, knowledge is a dark cover: Al-'ilm huwa al-hijab al- akbar (Knowledge is the greatest veil). Therefore, the vice of a corrupt 'alim is greater and more dangerous for Islam than all vices. Knowledge is light, but in a black, corrupt heart it spreads wide the skirts of darkness and blackness. A knowledge which would draw a man closer to God, in a worldly soul takes him far distant from the sanctum of the Almighty.

Even the science of tawhid (i.e. the higher Gnostic teaching), if it is for anything other than God, becomes a veil of darkness, for it is a preoccupation with that which is other than God. If one memorizes and recites the Noble Quran with all the fourteen different readings, if it is for anything other than God, it will not bring him anything but obscurity and distance from Haqq ta'ala (God). If you study and work hard, you may become an 'alim, but you had better know that there is a big difference between being an 'alim and being refined. The late Shaykh, our teacher10, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "That which is said, 'How easy it is to become a mullah; how difficult it is to become a man,' is not correct.

It should be said, 'How difficult it is to become a mullah, and it is impossible to become a man!' " The acquisition of the virtues and human nobilities and standards is a difficult and great duty which rests upon your shoulders. Do not suppose now that you are engaged in studying the religious sciences, and learning fiqh (the study of Islamic law), which is the most honorable of these sciences, that you can take it easy otherwise, and that you have carried out your responsibilities and duties. If you do not have a pure intention of approaching God, these sciences will be of no benefit at all. If your studies-may Allah protect us-are not for the sake of God, and are for the sake of personal desires-the acquisition of position and the seats of authority, titles and prestige-then you will accumulate nothing for yourself but harm and disaster.

This terminology you are learning, if it is for anything but God, it is harm and disaster. This terminology, as much as it increases, if it is not accompanied by refinement and fear of God (taqwa), then it will end in harm in this world and the next for the Muslim community. Merely knowing terminology is not effective. Even the science of tawhid, if it is not accompanied with purity of the soul, will bring disaster.

How many individuals have been learned in the science of tawhid, and have perverted entire groups of people! How many individuals have had the very same knowledge that you have, or even more knowledge, but were deviant and did not reform themselves, so that when they entered the community, they perverted many and led them astray!

This dry terminology, if it is not accompanied by piety (taqwa) and refinement of the soul, as much as it accumulates in one's mind it will only lead to the expansion of pride and conceit in the realm of the soul. The unfortunate 'alim who is defeated by his own conceit cannot reform himself or his community, and it will result in nothing but harm to Islam and the Muslims.

And after years of studying and wasting religious funding, enjoying his Islamic salary and fringe benefits, he will become an obstacle in the way of Islam and the Muslims. Nations will be perverted by him. The result of these lessons and discussions and the time spent in the seminary will be the prevention of the introduction to the world of Islam and the truths of the Quran; rather, it is possible that his existence will be a barrier preventing the society from coming to know Islam and spirituality.

I am not saying that you should not study, that you should not acquire knowledge. But you have to pay attention that if you want to be a useful and effective member of society and Islam and lead a nation to awareness of Islam and to defend the fundamentals of Islam, it is necessary that the basis of jurisprudence be strengthened and that you gain mastery of the subject.

If, God forbid, you fail to study, then it is forbidden for you to remain in the seminary. You may not use the religious salary of the students of the religious sciences. Of course, the acquisition of knowledge is necessary, although in the same way that you take pains with the problems of fiqh and usul (law and jurisprudence), you must make efforts in the path of self- reformation. Every step forward which you take in the acquisition of knowledge, should be matched by a step taken to beat down the desires of the soul, to strengthen one's spiritual powers, to acquire nobility of character, and to gain spirituality and piety.

The learning of these sciences in reality is an introduction to the refinement of the soul and the acquisition of virtue, manners and divine knowledge. Do not spend your entire life with the introduction, so that you leave aside the conclusion. You are acquiring these sciences for the sake of a high and holy aim: knowing God and refining the self. You should make plans to realize the results and effects of your work, and you should be serious about reaching your fundamental and basic goal.

When you enter the seminary, before anything else, you should plan to reform yourselves. While you are in the seminary, along with your studies, you should refine yourselves, so that when you leave the seminary and become the leader of a people in a city or district, they may profit from you, take advice from you, and reform themselves by means of your deeds and manners and your ethical virtues. Try to reform and refine yourselves before you enter among the people. If now, while you are unencumbered, you do not reform yourselves, on the day when people come before you, you will not be able to reform yourselves.

Many things ruin people and keep them from studying and purifying themselves, and one of them, for some, is this very beard and turban! When the turban becomes a bit large, and the beard gets long, if one has not refined oneself, this can hinder one's studies, and restrict one. It is difficult to trample the carnal self under one's feet, and to sit at the feet of another for lessons. Shaykh Tusi11, may Allah have mercy on him, at the age of fifty-two would go to classes, while between the ages of twenty and thirty, he wrote some of his books! His Tahdhib was possibly written during this period 12. Yet at the age of fifty-two he attended the classes of the late Sayyid Murtada13 and thereby achieved such a station as he did.

God forbid that prior to acquiring good habits and strengthening one's spiritual powers that one's beard should turn a bit white and that his turban should get big, so that he would lose the blessings of knowledge and spirituality. So work, before your beards become white; before you gain the attention of the people, think about your state!

God forbid that before a person develops himself, that people should pay heed to him, that he should become a personality and have influence among the people, causing him to lose his soul. Before you lose hold of the reins of yourself, develop and reform yourself! Adorn yourselves with good traits, and remove your vices! Become sincere in your lessons and discussions, so that you may approach God! If one does not have sincere intentions, one will be kept at a distance from the divine precincts. Beware that, after seventy years, when the book of your deeds is opened, Allah forbid, that you should have been far from God Almighty for seventy years.

Have you heard the story of the 'stone' which fell into hell? Only after seventy years was the sound of its hitting the bottom of hell heard. According to a narration, the Prophet, may the Peace and Blessings of Allah be with him and with his Progeny, said that it was an old man who died after seventy years, and during this seventy years he was falling into hell14.

Be careful that in the seminary that you do not reach hell by your own labour of fifty years, more or less, and the sweat of your brow! You had better think! Make plans in the field of refinement and purification of the soul, and reformation of character. Choose a teacher of morals for yourself; and arrange sessions for advice, counsel, and admonition. You cannot become refilled by yourself. If there is no place in the seminary for moral counselors and sessions of advice and exhortation, it will be doomed to annihilation.

How could it be that fiqh and usul should require teachers for lessons and discussions, and that for every science and skill a teacher is necessary, and no one becomes an expert or learned in any field spontaneously and by himself, yet with regard to the spiritual and ethical sciences, which are the goal of the mission of the prophets and are among the most subtle and exact sciences, they do not require teaching and learning, and one may obtain them oneself without a teacher?! I have heard on numerous occasions that the late Shaykh Ansari15, was a student of a great Sayyid16 who was a teacher of ethics and spirituality.

The prophets of God were raised in order to train people, to develop humanity, and to deliver them from ugliness, filth, corruption, pollution and moral turpitude, and to-acquaint them with virtue and good manners: "I was raised in order to complete noble virtues" (makarim al-akhlaq)17.

This knowledge which was considered by God the Almighty to be so important that he raised the prophets for it, is now considered unfashionable in the seminaries for our clergy. No one gives it the importance of which it is worthy. Due to the lack of spiritual and gnostic works in the seminaries, material and worldly problems have come so far as to penetrate the clergy (ruhaniyat), and has kept many of them away from holiness and spirituality (ruhaniyat) so that they do not even know what ruhaniyat means, nor what the responsibilities of a cleric are and what kind of programs they should have. Some of them merely plan to learn a few words, return to their own localities, or somewhere else, and to grab facilities and position, and to wrestle with others (for them)-like the one who said:

"Let me study Sharh e Lum'ah and then I will know what to do with the village chief!" Do not be this way, that from the beginning you aim to win someone's position by studying, and that you intend to be the chief of some town or village. You may achieve your selfish desires and Satanic expectations, but for yourself and the Islamic community you will gain nothing except harm and misfortune. Mu'awiyah was also chief for a long time, but for himself he achieved no result or benefit except curses and loathing and the chastisement of the afterlife.

It is necessary for you to refine yourselves, so that when you become the chief of a community or a clan, you will be able to refine them as well. In order to be able to take steps toward the reform and development of a community, your aim should be service to Islam and Muslims. If you take steps for the sake of God, God the Almighty is the turner of the heart He will turn hearts in favor of you:

﴾Surely for those who believe and do good deeds, the Merciful (al-Rahman) will bring, about love﴿. (19:96)

Take some trouble on the way to God, devote yourselves; God will not leave you unpaid; He will reward you, if not in this world, then in the next. If aside from Him, you have no reward in this world, what could be better? This world is nothing. This pomp and these personalities will come to an end after a few days, like a dream that passes before the eyes of man, but the otherworldly reward is infinite and never ending.

Warnings to the Seminaries

It is possible that by spreading poison and evil propaganda impure hands have portrayed ethical and reformatory programs as without importance and have presented going to the minbar (pulpit, pronounced as 'mimbar') for giving advice and making sermons as contrary to a scholarly station, and they inhibit the work of the great scholarly personalities who have the station of reforming and refining the seminaries by calling them 'mimbar' and (mere sermonizers). Today, in some seminaries, going to the mimbar and giving sermons may even be considered disgraceful! They forget that the Commander of the Faithful, Peace be with him, was mimbari (a sermonizer) and from the minbar he would admonish people, make them aware of things, raise their consciousnesses, and guide them. Other Imams, Peace be with them, were also this way.

Perhaps secret agents have injected this evil in order to exterminate spirituality and ethics from the seminaries, so that as a result our seminaries should become corrupt and dissolute; that, God forbid, forming gangs, selfishness, hypocrisy, and disputes should penetrate the seminaries; that the members of the seminaries fight with each other, close ranks against one another, and that they insult and belie one another; that they become discredited in the Islamic community, so that the foreigners and enemies of Islam are able to get hold of the seminaries and destroy them.

The ill- intentioned know that the people support the seminaries, and as long as the people support them it is not possible to crush them or tear them apart. But on the day when the members of the seminaries and the students of the seminaries come to lack ethical principles and Islamic manners, and fight each other, and form rival gangs, and are not refined and purified, dirty their hands with unsuitable deeds, then naturally the nation of Islam will get a bad impression of the seminaries and the clergy, and support for them will be lost, and consequently the way will be opened for the use of force and enemy's influence.

If you see that governments are afraid of a cleric and of a marja' (authority in Shi'ite jurisprudence and source of emulation), and take account of them, it is because of this, that-they benefit from the support of the people; in truth, they are afraid of the people. They consider it probable that the people will rebel and rise up against them if they show contempt and audacity and violate a cleric. However, if the clerics oppose one another and defame one another and do not behave with Islamic manners and morals, they will fall from their position in the community, and the people will abandon them18.

The people expect you to be ruhani (spiritual, a cleric), well-mannered with the manners of Islam, and to be of the party of Allah. Restrain yourselves from the glamor and glitter of life and artificiality, and do not refuse any kind of self-sacrifice in the way of the advancement of Islamic ideals and service to the nation of Islam. Step forward on the way of God the Almighty to please Him, and except for the unique Creator pay attention to no one.

However, if, contrary to what is expected, it is seen that instead of paying attention to the transcendental, all you care about is this world, and just like the others you try to gain worldly and personal interests, and you fight with one another for the sake of the world and its base pleasures, and you take Islam and the Quran, may Allah forbid it, as playthings, simply to reach sinister goals and your own dirty, disgraceful and worldly intentions, and you turn your religion into a marketplace, then the people will be turned away and become cynical. So, you will be responsible.

If some of those who wear the turban and burden the seminaries, fight and brawl with each other and malign and slander one another because of personal grudges and the pursuit of worldly interests, and rivalry over some positions, they commit treason against Islam and the Quran and violate the divine trust. God the Almighty has placed the holy religion of Islam in our hands as a trust. The Noble Quran is a great divine trust. The 'ulama and ruhaniyun (clergy) and the bearers of the divine trust, and they bear the responsibility to protect that trust from betrayal. This stubbornness and personal and worldly antagonism are treachery against Islam and the great Prophet of Islam.

I do not know what purpose is served by these oppositions, formations of cliques, and rivalries. If it is for the sake of the world, you do not have much of that! Supposing that you did benefit from pleasures and worldly interests, there would be no place for disagreements, unless you were not ruhani, and the only thing you inherited from ruhaniyat (spirituality, being a cleric) was the robe and the turban. A ruhani (cleric) who is occupied with supra-natural, a ruhani who benefits from living teachings and formative Islamic attributes, a ruhani who considers himself a follower of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be with him, is not possibly tempted by the world, nor would he allow it to cause disagreements.

You who have declared yourselves to be followers of the Commander of the Faithful, Peace be with him, you should at least do a bit of research into the life of that great man, and see if you are really one of his followers! Do you know and practice anything of his zuhd (asceticism), taqwa (piety, God-wariness) and simple, unadorned life? Do you know anything of that great man's combat against oppression and injustice, and class differences, and of his unhesitating defense and support of the oppressed and persecuted, of how he lent a hand to the dispossessed and suffering social classes? Have you put it into practice? Is the meaning "Shi'ite" nothing more than the ornamental appearances of Islam?19

Therefore, what is the difference between you and other Muslims who are much ahead and more observant in these matters than the Shi'ah? What distinguishes you over them?

Those who today have set a part of the world on fire, who spill blood and who kill, do this because they are competing with each other in looting the nations of the world and swallowing their wealth and the products of their labor, and in bringing the weak and under-developed countries under their domination and control. Thus, in the name of freedom, development and prosperity, the defense of independence and protection of borders, and under other deceptive slogans, every day the flames of war are set in some corner of the world, and millions of tons of incendiary bombs are dropped upon defenseless nations.

This fighting seems correct and accords with the logic of worldly people whose brains are polluted. However, your conflicts, even according to their logic, are incorrect. If asked why they are fighting, they will say that they want to take over such and such a country; the wealth and income of such and such a country must be made ours. However, if you are asked why you have conflicts and why you are fighting, what will you answer? What benefit do you get from the world, for the sake of which you are fighting?

Your monthly income, which the maraji' taqlid (supreme authorities of religious jurisprudence) give to you, called "shahriah," is less than the money spent by others for cigarettes! I saw in a newspaper or magazine-I don't recall exactly--that the amount the Vatican sends to a single priest in Washington makes quite a large figure. I reckon it is more than the entire budget of all the Shi'ite seminaries! Is it right for you, with your lifestyle and conditions, to have conflicts and confrontations with one another?

The root of all these conflicts which have no specific sacred aim is love of this world. If conflicts of this sort exist among you, it is for the reason that you have not expelled the love of this world from your hearts.

Because worldly interests are limited, each one rises up against his rival in order to obtain them. You desire a certain position which someone else also wants, and naturally this leads to jealousy and strife. However, the people of God-who have expelled the love of the world from their hearts and have no aim but God-never fight with one another and never cause such calamities and corruption. If all of the divine prophets were to gather in a city today, there would be no disagreement or conflict among them, for their aims and goals are one. The hearts of-all of them attend to God the Almighty, and they are clear of any love of the world.

If your deeds and actions, your way of life and your wayfaring, are of the sort evident today, then you had better fear-may God protect us from It-that you may leave this world without being one of the Shia of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be upon him. You should fear that your repentance might not be accepted, and that you might not receive the intercession of Imam 'Ali. Before losing the opportunity, you should try to remedy this. Give up these banal and shameful conflicts. These confrontations and conflicts are wrong. Do you compose two nations? Does your religion constitute different sects? Why will you not beware? Why are you not pure and honest and brotherly with one another? Why? Why?

These conflicts are dangerous, for they lead to irreparable harm, the destruction of the seminaries, and they will bring you discredit and dishonor in the community. This banding into gangs is only to your loss. Not only does it bring you harm and discredit, but it brings dishonor and harm to the community and the nation, and leads to the harm of Islam. If your confrontations lead to harm it will be an unforgivable offense, and before God the Almighty it will be one of the greatest of all sins, because it will corrupt the community and make it prone to the influence and domination of the enemy.

Perhaps some hidden hands are at work spreading enmity and discord in the seminaries, sowing by various means the seeds of discord and strife, poisoning the thoughts and confusing the minds under the guise of 'religious duties'. By means of such 'religious duties' corruption is established in the seminaries, so that those who are useful for the future of Islam are destroyed and disabled from serving Islam and the Islamic community in the future.

It is necessary to be conscious and aware. Do not fool yourselves into thinking that your religious duties require such things, and that your religious obligations are such and so.

Sometimes Satan determines responsibilities and duties for man. Sometimes selfish wants and desires force a man to do things in the name of religious duties. Offending a Muslim and saying something bad about a brother in faith are not religious duties. This is love of the world and love of self. These are the promptings of Satan which bring such wretchedness for man.

This enmity is the enmity of the damned: ﴾That most surely is the truth, the contending of one with another of the inmates of the fire﴿ (38:64). Enmity and contention exist in hell. The people of hell have conflicts, fighting and clawing at one another. If you have quarrels for the sake of the world, beware that you are preparing hell for yourself, and you are on the way there. There is no fighting for things of the other world. The people of the other world are pure and at peace with one another. Their hearts are overflowing with the love of God and servitude to Him. The love of God requires the love of those who have faith in God. The love for the servants of God is the shadow of that very love for God.

Do not set your own hands on fire. Do not set ablaze the flames of hell. Hell is lit with the ugly works and deeds of man. These are the deeds of a refractory man which set this fire. It is narrated: "I passed hell when it was extinguished."20 If a man does not light the fire by his works and deeds, hell will remain extinguished. The interior of this nature is hell. To approach this nature is to approach hell. When man passes away from this world and the; curtains are drawn aside, he will realize, ﴾This is for what your own hands have sent before,﴿ (3:182), and ﴾and what they had done they shall find present,﴿ (18:49).

All of the deeds which are done by man in this world will be seen in the other world, and will be embodied for him, ﴾So he who has done an atom's weight of good shall see it and he who has done an atom's weight of evil shall see it﴿(99:7-8). All of the works and deeds and words of man will be reflected in the other world. It is as if everything in our lives were being filmed, and in that world the film will be shown, and one will be able to deny none of it.

All of our actions and movements will be shown to us, in addition to the testimony given by our limbs and organs: ﴾They shall say: Allah, Who makes everything speak, has made us speak﴿ (41:21). You will not be able to deny your ugly deeds or hide them before God, Who Will make all things able to speak and bear witness. Think a little, look ahead, and weigh the consequences of your deeds.

Keep in mind the perilous events which take place after death, the pressure of the grave, the world of barzakh (the period between death and resurrection), and do not neglect the hardships which will follow that. At least believe in hell. If a man believes in the perilous events which take place after death, he will change his way of life. If you had faith and certainty in these things, you would not live so freely and licentiously. You will try to guard your pen, your steps, and your tongue, in order to reform and purify yourselves.

Divine Blessings

Because He favors His servants, God the Blessed and Supreme gave them Intellect. He gave them the power to refine and purify themselves. He sent the prophets and awliya' to guide people and to help them to reform themselves so that they do not fall into the severe chastisement of hell. If these restraints do not bring about awareness and refinement in man, God the Merciful, will make him aware through other means: by various hardships, afflictions, poverty, illness. Like an expert physician or a skilled and kind nurse He tries to cure sick men from dangerous spiritual illnesses.

If a servant is blessed by God, he will be faced with afflictions until he turns his attention to God the Almighty, and is refined. This is the way, and other than this there is no way. But man must tread this path with his own feet in order to attain success. If he does not succeed in this way, and the misled man is not cured, and he does not deserve the blessings of heaven. There will be much pressure on him when his soul is drawn from him, so perhaps he will return and be aware.

Again, if he is not affected, then in the grave, in the world of barzakh, and in the terrible perilous events which take place after death he will suffer pressures and chastisement until he becomes purified and refined, and he will not go to hell. All of these are blessings from Almighty God to prevent man from going to hell. What then if with all these blessings and favors from Almighty God he is still not cured? Then there is no other alternative but the last cure, which is that he should be burned. How many a man has not refined and reformed himself and was not affected by these cures, so that he needed God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, to refine His servant by fire, just as gold must be purified in fire.

Regarding the ayah ﴾Living therein for ages,﴿ (78:23), it has been reported that the 'ages' mentioned here are for those who have been guided and the basis of whose faith has been intact21. This is for me and you, if we are believers. Each age lasts for thousands of years, how many, God only knows. God forbid that we reach such a state that these cures are not effective, so that this final cure is required for deserving and meriting the everlasting blessings [of heaven] God forbid that it should be necessary that a man should go to hell for a while and burn there until he is purified from his vices, spiritual pollution, and filthy Satanic attributes, so that he may become deserving and capable of benefiting from ﴾gardens beneath which rivers flow.﴿ (58:22)

Beware that this is only for those whose sins have not reached such an extent that they are entirely deprived of the mercy and blessings of God the Almighty, those who yet have an essential merit for going to heaven. God forbid that a man, due to the multitude of his sins, should be expelled and blocked from the presence of God the Almighty, and that he should be bereft of divine mercy, so that there is no other way for him but to remain forever in the fire of hell. God forbid that you should be bereft of divine mercy and blessings, and that you should be subject to His wrath, anger, and chastisements. May your deeds, behavior and speech not be the means to the denial of grace, so that there is no way for you but eternal damnation.

Now, while you cannot bear to hold a hot stone in your hand for a minute, keep the fire of hell away! Keep these fires from the seminaries and from the clerical community. Keep disputes and strife far from your hearts. Behave well with people, and in company, and be compassionate and kind. Of course, you are not to be nice to sinners with regard to their sins and rebelliousness. Tell him to his face of his ugly deeds and wrongdoing, and prohibit him from it; and keep yourselves from promoting anarchy and disturbance. Behave well with the servants of God and the righteous.

Show respect to the learned with regard to their knowledge, to those on the path of guidance with regard to their virtue, and to the ignorant and unlearned, for they are also the servants of God. Have good behavior, be kind, honest and brotherly. Refine yourselves. You want to refine and guide the community, but how can one who is not able to reform and manage himself guide and manage others? Now there are only a few days left in the month of Sha'ban, so try in these few days to repent and reform yourselves, and enter the blessed month of Ramadan with a healthy soul.

Points regarding the Intimate Devotions (Munajat) of the Month of Sha'ban

Have you said the Munajat of Sha'ban for God, the Blessed and Supreme, a devotion whose recital has been recommended during this month, from the first until the last of the month? Have you benefited from its lofty meanings which teach increased faith and knowledge (ma'rifah) with regard to the station of the Lord? It is reported with regard to this supplication that it is the munajat of Imam 'Ali-Peace be upon him-and his descendants and all of the immaculate Imams-Peace be upon them-called u