[Pooya/Ali Commentary 1:7] SIRATAL LADHINA AN-AMTA ALAYHIM The right path has been clearly defined, unmistakable in meaning, positive in application. Any path, fancied and chosen by man, individually or collectively, according to this verse, is not the right path. The right guidance, identified beyond doubt, has been made available to mankind. To follow the path of the divinely guided guides, on whom Allah has bestowed His bounties, is the right guidance. Their path leads to the divine grace. It satisfies the essential fulfilment of those who desire to always remain rightly guided. Attached with the rightly guided guides, man must rely upon their model righteousness to give form and meaning to the life spent in this world. The rightly guided guides are only those whom Allah Himself has thoroughly purified: Verily, Allah intends but to keep off from you uncleanness O you Ahl ul Bayt, and purify you with a thorough purification. (AHZAB: 33) The essential prerequisite for following the path of an ideal, worthy of imitation, is to love the cherished model with heart and soul. To serve this necessity the almighty Allah and His Holy Prophet have enjoined the love of the Ahl ul Bayt, the thoroughly purified and divinely chosen guides, who show the right path. Say you (O Muhammad): "I ask of you no recompense therefor, save love of (my) relatives (Ahl ul Bayt)." And who earns good, We increase for him (more) good therein, verily Allah is oft-forgiving, thankful. (SHURA: 23) Love and attachment with the chosen guides, the Ahl ul Bayt, is known, in the religious doctrines of the original Islam, Shi'ism, as tawalla. Aqa Mahdi Puya says: Wherever you turn you shall find (only) His manifestation. (BAQARAH; 115) Therefore, it may be said that all paths lead to Him, whether the path is straight or curved. Though it is true that every creation, in some way or the other, is His manifestation, yet that which is closer to His essence in comprehensiveness and gives a better vision of His unity, absoluteness and omnipotence, is more effective in making clear His supreme being. To follow the track of such manifestations is, in fact, itself the right path, which has been instituted by the almighty Allah as the true guidance. A sure and clear view of the straight path is possible when there is a model or a guiding example. The Quran identifies it as the path of those on whom Allah has bestowed His bounties. Who so obeys Allah and the messenger (Muhammad), they are with those upon whom Allah has bestowed favours, of the prophets, and the truthful, and the witnesses, and the righteous; and the best are they as companions! (NISA: 69) Whereby Allah guides him who follows His pleasure, into the ways of peace, and brings them out of darkness unto light by His grace (will), and guides them to the right path. (MA-IDAH: 16) Though His bounties are the outcome of His universal grace (rahmaniyat), encompassing all His creatures, "My grace (mercy) embraces all things", (ARAF: 156), yet out of His rahimiyat He has chosen the prophets, the truthful, the witnesses, the righteous, and those who follow their footsteps, in letter and spirit, as His friends. Even those who had been thoroughly purified by Allah and whose path has been described as an ideal for the whole mankind, had always turned to Allah because the (two bows' length or nearer) distance, between theirs and the infinite beings' perfection, was visible to them only. So man must aspire to rise higher and higher, then only he becomes aware of the distance and submits unconditionally to the supreme being. The gift of mental, moral and spiritual perfection, the real favour and true bounty, which enables man to avoid sin, is indicated in this verse. It also identifies the perfect beings whose purity had never been corrupted by any evil of any kind, from the beginning to the end of their life on this earth. Such men of ideal purity, who knew why and how the universe was created by Allah and the laws which govern its operation, therefore, did not commit any mistake, in thought and action, are called ma-sumin (infallible). They are only fourteen in Islam- the Holy Prophet and his divinely chosen twelve successors, and Fatimah, the daughter of the Holy Prophet. In addition, the prophets and the messengers of Allah, who had been sent before the Holy Prophet, are also ma-sum (infallible). When Allah asks mankind to necessarily follow the path of those upon whom He has bestowed His bounties, it is a must that there always should be, till the end of the world, people on whom He bestows His bounties, who are destined to be the ideal, testified models of righteousness, on the earth. These men cannot be but those who should, of course, be like and comparable to the Holy Prophet in purity, wisdom and that which made the Holy Prophet the khayrul bashr, the best among mankind; otherwise without the availability of the model, the command to follow in its footsteps would be an injustice. This verse proves, beyond doubt, the existence of an Imam in every age, uptil the day of judgement. To know about whom the Quran says "he who is the best in knowledge and wisdom", the divinely guided guide, read the following verses: VERSE 269 IN BAQARAH. VERSE 55 IN MA-IDAH. VERSE 35 IN YUNUS. VERSE 16 IN RA'D. VERSE 9 IN ZUMAR. VERSE 26 IN MULK. These verses guide the seeker of truth to find out the essential qualities a religious leader or a spiritual guide must possess, and then to select his leader, without fear or favour, because, "there is no compulsion in religion" (BAQARAH: 256). Freedom of choice has been given to man as a test and a trial, after revealing the truth which teaches to distinguish between good and evil. The Quran does not mention names but only describes qualities in order to give the seeker of truth an open opportunity to exercise his freedom of choice. He to whom wisdom is given, he truly has received abundant good. (BAQARAH: 269) Besides, "I and Ali are of the 'one and the same' light", and "I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate", there are several traditions (see "Essentials for the readers of the Holy Quran" from page 1 to 7) which clearly make known the unique position of Ali in Islam. Through these traditions Muhammad and Ali have been proved to be the same in physical and spiritual purity. The meaning of this verse, in the light of other verses, is that to be guided aright, one should, in the absence of the Holy Prophet, follow Ali, and the divinely chosen genuine guides among his progeny, because while departing from this world the Holy Prophet gave his last and final guidance to all his followers, for all times: I will soon be called back, so I will have to go away from you, but I leave behind, among you, the thaqalayn (two weighty indispensable influential authorities), the book of Allah and my Ahl ul Bayt. Should you be attached to these two, never, never shall you go astray, after me, for verily these two will never be separated from each other; and, joined together, they shall meet me at kawthar. The Holy Prophet and the Holy Imams are the models. Their personal purity, according to verse 33 of al Ahzab, from the moment of their arrival in this physical world to their departure, had been the unquestionable manifestation of the glory of the divine purity. Through verse 177 of al Baqarah, man is directed to follow the path of those whose piety has been described therein. They are the Ahl ul Bayt. "My Ahl ul Bayt are like the ark of Nuh. Who so gets into it is saved; and who so stays away is drowned and lost," said the Holy Prophet. The privilege of receiving direction by means of wahi, or revelation, a special medium of communicating the divine will, through the agency of an angel-messenger (Jibra-il) to the prophets and messengers of Allah, who had to convey the divine message in verbatim, was brought to an end after the Holy Prophet, the last of Allah's messengers. No angel did ever come to any one after the last prophet, Muhammad, with any message whatsoever from Allah. Wahi, through the messenger-angel, had been sent only to a messenger of Allah, endowed with a thorough purity, which alone could sustain, carry and convey it. No human being, who does not possess the essential cleanliness, is in a condition to bear the divine revelation conveyed through angelic agency, unless Allah Himself purifies him with a thorough purification. Only that substance which is inherently pure in its innate genesis and particularly moulded, with a purpose in view, can hold up the energy and reproduce it in the same tone. All the prophets were the true messengers of Allah but each had a different receiving capacity, therefore, the Holy Prophet was not only the last of the prophets of Allah but also stood high and distinguished amongst the divinely chosen messengers, because in purity, strength and wisdom he was the ultimate model designed by Allah. These messengers, We have exalted some of them above some others; of them are some unto whom Allah has spoken, and some He raised many degrees, (BAQARAH: 253) Now, a new school of thought, in an attempt to make up an excuse for the continuation of prophethood, puts forward several untenable arguments based upon conjectures. It is said that the divine favours of guiding a human soul, through wahi, can be bestowed on any one upto the day of judgement. No one can deny that the divine guidance through revelation may continue as long as Allah wills. The word wahi literally means a mental awakening to an idea. Also any one may conceive any idea but this wahi cannot be said to have been revealed to him from Allah. And verily satans do inspire (yuwhuna) their friends to dispute with you. (AN-AM: 122) So Shaytan also, through his own methods, "inspires" his friends, but the confused simpletons are led to believe that the wahi is from Allah. The wahi from Allah, known as ilham, through inspiration, guides those whom He chooses. The chosen being may be a man, or even a bee. And your Lord inspired (awha) the bee: Choose habitations in the hills and in the trees and in that which they thatch; (NAHL: 69) It cannot be a sensible argument to say that by receiving wahi from Allah, a bee becomes the messenger of Allah. Only when a meaningful message is conveyed through the agency of the messenger-angel, Jibra-il, a person can claim to be the messenger of Allah. This method of divine communication had been terminated after the Holy Prophet, Muhammad, therefore, he is the last messenger of Allah. This day I have perfected for you, your religion, and have completed My favour on you, and chosen for you Islam (to be) the religion; (MA-IDAH: 33) When Allah, the Quran, as the source of the law and practice of the faith, the procedure of prayers, and the qiblah are the same, and Allah has perfected the religion, completed the favour and finally named the religion, why should any one feel the necessity of a new messenger, and for what purpose Allah would summon the messenger-angel to go to any person if there is no new message to be added to His already perfected, completed and final book? Although many impostors have come and gone with false claims to prophethood, but, in truth, as explained above, there is no necessity of a messenger after the Holy Prophet, Muhammad, nor any messenger will come, in future, till eternity. GHAYRIL MAGHDUBI ALAYHIM WALADDALLIN "Not (the path) of those inflicted with Your wrath, nor (the path) of those gone astray" is an explanatory clause of the 7th verse. The supplicant gives expression to his dislike and aversion for those who have rebelled against the divine authority and gone astray, and earned the wrath of Allah. Aqa Mahdi Puya says: There is no need to take ghayril maghdubi as the qualifying adjectival clause for the personal pronoun alayhim, or the relative pronoun alladhina, as Zamaqshari says, because an-amta alaykim is a restriction. Therefore, these two clauses should be taken as appositional clauses in the negative form. Ghayril maghdubi and waladdallin are those who have deviated from the right path, to follow which has been made obligatory by Allah, and by overstepping the prescribed limits have gone astray. By doing so they have earned the wrath of Allah. Those who neither fall short of and lag behind (taqsir), nor overstep the boundaries (ghulu), in fact, walk on the right path of the Holy Prophet. The Jews are said to be in the category of maghdubi, as an example of taqsir, and the Christians in the category of dallin, as an example of ghulu, but truly, those who fall short of and lag behind in the matter of carrying out Allah's commands are included in the maghdubi and those who overstep the boundaries and transgress the limits, laid down by Allah, are included in the dallin. The Holy Prophet who, according to the Quran, "neither errs, nor is deceived, nor he speaks of (his own) desire", positively asked his followers to adhere to and abide by the guidance his Ahl ul Bayt (Ali and his descendants) would reveal and demonstrate, after him, as his divinely chosen successors. Who so, among his ummah, makes less their divinely set up position, renders himself liable to be grouped with the maghdubi; and who so elevates and exalts the men of ordinary character to higher status of spiritual guides, not confirmed by Allah and His prophet, renders himself liable to be joined with the dallin. Likewise those who glorify the prophets and their successors as gods are also con