Seventh Section: The Seven Signs
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
So believe in Allah and His Apostle, the unlettered Prophet, who believes in Allah and His Words; follow him that [so] you may be guided. ❋ Fain would they extinguish Allah’s Light with their mouths, but Allah will not allow but that His Light should be perfected, even though the unbelievers may detest [it].
These seven signs are the answers to three questions.
The First Question
Consists of four signs.
First Sign
Like all the bad things they do, the arguments which those people who are attempting to change the marks of Islam cite to support themselves spring from their blind imitation of Europe.
They say: “In London, Europeans who have embraced Islam translate many things like the call to prayer and iqāma into their own languages in their own country. The World of Islam says nothing in the face of this and does not object. That must mean it is permissible according to the Shari‘a, since they are silent?”
The Answer: There is such a glaring difference here that no conscious being could make such a comparison and imitate them. For the European lands are called the Abode of War in the terminology of the Shari‘a, and there are numerous things that are permissible in the Abode of War that are not lawful in the Abode of Islam.
Furthermore, the lands of Europe are the realm of Christendom. They are not an environment that communicates and instils the meanings of the terms of the Shari‘a and concepts of the sacred words, so necessarily the sacred meanings have been preferred to the sacred words; the words have been abandoned for the meaning; the lesser of two evils has been chosen.
In the Abode of Islam, however, the very environment teaches the people of Islam the abbreviated meanings of those sacred words. The conversations of Muslims about Islamic traditions and Islamic history and the marks of Islam and the pillars of Islam, all continuously instil in them the concise meanings of those blessed words. In this country, besides the mosques and the medreses, even the gravestones in the graveyards inculcate those sacred meanings in believers like teachers and recall them to them.
If for some worldly advantage, someone who calls himself a Muslim learns fifty words a day from a French dictionary, and then in fifty years does not learn the sacred phrases “Glory be to Allah,” “All praise be to Allah,” “There is no god but Allah,” and “Allah is Most Great,” which are repeated fifty times daily, does he not fall lower than an animal? These sacred words cannot be translated and corrupted and deported for such beasts! To change and deport them means erasing all the gravestones; it means turning all the dead in the graveyards against them, trembling at such an insult.
In Order to Deceive the Nation, Corrupt Religious Scholars Who Have Been Misled by the Irreligious, Say That contrary to the other Imams, Imam‑i A‘zam said: If the need arises in distant countries, it is permissible for those who know no Arabic at all to recite the Fatiha in Persian. We are in need of this, so can we recite it in Turkish?
The Answer: The most important of the leading authorities as well as the other twelve leading mujtahids have given fatwas opposing this fatwa of Imam‑i A‘zam. The great highway of the World of Islam is their highway; the Muslim community may follow it. Those who drive the community towards another, special and narrow, way are leading it astray. Imam-i A‘zam’s fatwa is particular in five respects:
Firstly: It addresses people who are far from the centre of Islam.
Secondly: It is in consequence of real need.
Thirdly: According to one narration, it refers only to translations into Persian, which is supposed to be a language of the people of Paradise.
Fourthly: The ruling is limited to the Fatiha, so that those who do not know it will not give up performing the obligatory prayers.
Fifthly: Permission was given so that the sacred meanings could be understood by the ordinary people whose Islamic zeal arose from their powerful belief. But to translate them and discard the Arabic original due to weakness of belief, negative nationalism, and hatred for the Arabic language, driven by a destructive urge, will cause people to renounce religion.
Second Sign
The people of innovation who have changed the marks of Islam first of all sought fatwas from corrupt religious scholars. They had previously pointed out that the fatwa we explained was particular in five respects.
Secondly, the people of innovation adopted the following inauspicious idea from the European reformists: being dissatisfied with the Catholic Church foremost the revolutionaries, reformists, and philosophers, who were innovators according to the Church, favoured Protestantism, which was considered to Mu‘tazilite, and taking advantage of the French Revolution they partially destroyed the Catholic Church and proclaimed Protestantism.
Then the Pseudo‑Patriots Here, Who Are Accustomed to Imitating Blindly, Said: “A revolution like that came about in the Christian religion. At first the revolutionaries were called apostates, then later they were again accepted as Christians. So why shouldn’t there be a similar religious revolution in Islam?”
The Answer: The difference here is even greater than in the false comparison in the First Sign. Because in the religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), only the fundamentals of religion were taken from him. Most of the injunctions relating to social life and the secondary matters of the law were formulated by the disciples and other spiritual leaders. The greater part were taken from former holy scriptures. Since Jesus (Upon whom be peace) was not a worldly ruler and sovereign, and since he was not the source of general social laws, the fundamentals of his religion were as though clothed with the garment of common laws and civil rules taken from outside, having been given a different form and called the Christian law. If this form is changed and the garment transformed, the fundamental religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace) may persist. It does not infer denying or giving the lie to Jesus himself (Upon whom be peace).
However, the Glory of the World (Upon whom be blessings and peace) was the founder of the religion and Shari‘a of Islam. He was the sovereign of this world and the next, and the East and West and Andalusia and India were his seat of rule. He himself therefore both taught the fundamentals of the religion of Islam, and brought its secondary matters and other injunctions, including even minor matters of conduct; he himself taught them; he commanded them.
That is to say, the secondary matters of Islam are not like a garment capable of change, so that if they are changed, the essential religion will persist. They are rather a sort body for the fundamentals of religion, or at least a skin. They have blended and combined with it and cannot be separated. To change them infers direct denial and contradiction of the one who brought the Shari‘a.
As for the differences in the schools of law, this has arisen from differences in ways of understanding the theoretical principles shown by the Shari‘a’s owner. Principles called “the essentials of religion,” which are not open to interpretation, and those called “incontrovertible” cannot be changed in any way and may not be interpreted. Anyone who does change them quits the religion and is included under the rule: They renounce religion as the arrow flies from the bow.
The people of innovation have found the following pretext for their irreligion and deviation from the straight path. They say: “The French Revolution was the cause of a sequence of events in the world of humanity; the clergy and spiritual leaders and the Catholic Church, which was their Church, were attacked and eliminated. Later the Revolution was condoned by a lot of people; also, the French made greater progress. Is this not so?”
The Answer: Like with the previous comparisons, the differences here are clear. For in France, the Christian religion and particularly the Catholic Church had for a long time been a means of domination and despotism in the hands of the upper and ruling classes. It was the means by which they perpetuated their hold over the ordinary people. And since it was through the Catholic Church that the patriots were oppressed, who among the common people were awakened and were called “Jacobins,” and the freedom‑seeking thinkers were persecuted, who attacked the despotism of the upper class tyrants; and since for nearly four hundred years the Catholic Church had been an imputed cause, through revolutions in Europe, of overturning the stability of social life, it had been attacked, not in the name of irreligion, but by the other Christian sects. A feeling of indignation and enmity arose among the common people and the philosophers as a result of which the above-mentioned historical event took place.
However, no oppressed person and no thinker has the right to complain about the religion of Muhammad (UWBP) and the Shari‘a of Islam. For it does not injure them, it protects them. Islamic history is there for all to see. Apart from one or two incidents, no internal wars of religion have occurred. Whereas the Catholic Church caused four hundred years of internal revolutions.
Furthermore, Islam has been the stronghold of the common people rather than of the upper classes. Through enjoining the payment of zakat and prohibiting usury and interest, it has made the upper classes not despots over the common people but servants in a way! It says: The master of a people is its servant. And, The best of people is the one most useful to people.
Also, through sacred phrases like, So will they not think? ❋ So will they not reflect on it? ❋ So will they not reason?, the All‑Wise Qur’an calls on the intellect to testify; it warns, refers to the reason, it urges investigation. Through this, it accords scholars and the people of reason a position; it gives them importance. It does not dismiss the reason like the Catholic Church; it does not silence thinkers, or require blind imitation of them.
Since the fundamentals of, not true Christianity, but the present‑day Christian religion and the fundamentals of Islam have parted on another important point, they go their separate ways in many respects like the above-mentioned differences. The important point is this:
Islam is the religion of the true affirmation of divine unity (tevhid‑i hakikî) so that it dismisses intermediaries and causes. It breaks egotism and establishes sincere worship. It cuts at the root every sort of false dominicality, starting from that of the soul, and rebuffs it. It is because of this that if a person of high position from the upper class is going to be completely religious, he will have to give up his egotism. If he does not give up egotism, he will lose his strength of religion and to an extent give up his religion.
As for the Christian religion of the present day, since it has accepted the belief of Jesus (Upon whom be peace) being the Son of Allah, it ascribes an actual effect to causes and intermediaries. It cannot break egotism in the name of religion. Rather, saying that egotism is a holy deputy of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), it ascribes it a sacredness. For this reason, members of the Christian upper classes who occupy the highest worldly positions may be completely religious. In fact, there are many like the former American President, Wilson, and the former British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, who were as religious as bigoted priests.
But any Muslims who rise to those positions rarely remain completely religious and firm in their religion, for they cannot give up their pride and egotism. And true taqwa cannot be combined with pride and egotism.
Yes, just as the religious bigotry of the Christian upper class and slackness in religion of the Muslim upper class demonstrate an important difference, so the fact that the philosophers who emerged from Christianity were indifferent towards religion or else opposed it, while the great majority of those who emerged from Islam constructed their philosophy on Islamic fundamentals, demonstrates yet another important difference.
Furthermore, generally, ordinary Christians who have fallen on hard times or are sent to prison cannot expect assistance from religion. Formerly, most of them became irreligious. In fact, the revolutionaries famous in history who instigated the French Revolution and were called “irreligious Jacobins,” were mostly disaster‑stricken common people. Whereas in Islam, the great majority of those who suffer disaster or imprisonment await succour from religion and they become religious. This situation too, demonstrates an important difference.
Third Sign
The people of innovation say: “Religious bigotry made us backward. Living this age necessitates giving up bigotry. Europe advanced when it abandoned it. Isn’t this so?”
The Answer: You are wrong and you have been deceived! Or else you are deceiving, for Europe is bigoted in religion. Tell an ordinary Bulgar or an English soldier or a French Jacobin: “Wear this turban, or else you’ll be thrown into prison!”, and their bigotry will force them to reply: “Not prison, if you kill me even, I won’t insult my religion and nation in that way!”
Also, history testifies that whenever the people of Islam have adhered to their religion, they have advanced in relation to the strength of their adherence. And whenever they have become less firm in their religion, they have declined. Whereas with Christianity, it is the opposite. This too arises from an essential difference.
Also, Islam cannot be compared with other religions; if a Muslim abandons Islam and gives up his religion, he will not accept any other prophet; indeed, he will not acknowledge Allah the Most High either nor probably recognize anything sacred. He will have no conscience that will allow him moral and spiritual attainment; it will be corrupted. Therefore, in the view of Islam, in wartime, an unbeliever has the right to life. His life is protected according to Islam if he is outside the country and makes peace, or if he is inside the country and pays the head‑tax. But an apostate does not have the right to life. For his conscience is corrupted and he becomes like poison in the life of society.
But a Christian may still contribute to society, even if he is irreligious. He may accept some sacred matters and may believe in some of the prophets, and may assent to Allah the Most High in some respects.
I wonder, what advantage do these innovators, or more accurately deviants or heretics, find in this irreligion? If they are thinking of government and public order, to govern ten irreligious anarchists who do not know Allah the Most High and to repulse their evils is much more difficult than governing a thousand people with religion.
If they are thinking of progress, such irreligious people are an obstacle to progress, just as they are harmful for the administration and government. They destroy security and public order, which are the basis of progress and commerce. In truth, they are destructive due to the very way they have taken. The biggest fool in the world is one who expects progress, prosperity, and happiness from irreligious anarchists like them.
One of those fools who occupied a high position, said: “We said ‘Allah! Allah!’ and remained backward. Europe said ‘Guns and cannons,’ and advanced.”
According to the rule, “A fool should be answered with silence,” the answer for such people is silence. But because behind certain fools there are inauspicious clever people, we say this:
O you wretches! This world is a guesthouse. Every day thirty thousand witnesses put their signature with their corpses to the decree “Death is a reality” and they testify to it. Can you kill death? Can you contradict those witnesses? Since you can’t, death makes people say: “Allah! Allah!” Which of your guns and cannons can illuminate the everlasting darkness confronting someone in the throes of death in place of “Allah! Allah!”, and transform his absolute despair into absolute hope? Since there is death and we shall enter the grave, and this life departs and an eternal life comes, if guns and cannons are said once, “Allah! Allah!” should be said a thousand times. And if it is in Allah’s way, the gun also says “Allah!”, and the cannon booms “Allahu Akbar!” It breaks the fast with “Allah,” and starts it.
Fourth Sign
The destructive innovators are of two kinds:
The First Kind say as though on account of religion and out of loyalty to Islam, as though to strengthen religion with nationalism: “We want to plant the luminous tree of religion, which has grown weak, in the earth of nationalism, in order to strengthen it.” They appear to be supporting religion.
The Second Sort say in the name of the nation and on account of nationalism, in order to strengthen racialism, say: “We want to graft Islam onto the nation,” thus creating innovations.
To the First Sort, We Say: O unhappy, corrupt scholars of religion who confirm the saying “loyal fools,” or ecstatic, unthinking, ignorant Sufis! The Tuba‑tree of Islam, whose roots are founded in the reality of the universe and whose branches spread through the truths of the universe, cannot be planted in the earth of imaginary, temporary, partial, particular, negative, indeed, baseless, rancorous, tyrannical, and dark racialism! To try to do so is to attempt something foolish, destructive, and innovative.
To the Second Sort of Nationalists, We Say This: O you drunken pseudo‑patriots! Perhaps the previous century could have been the age of nationalism. This century is not the age of racialism! Communism and socialism pervade everything, destroying the idea of racialism. The age of racialism is passing. Eternal, permanent Islamic nationalism cannot be bound onto temporary unstable racialism and grafted onto it. And even if it were to be, it would corrupt the Islamic nation, but it would not reform racialist nationalism. Yes, there appears to be a pleasure and temporary strength in a temporary graft, but it is very temporary and the consequences are dangerous.
Furthermore, it would open up a split in the Turkish people that could not be healed in all eternity. Then the nation’s strength would be reduced to nothing, since one section would have broken the power of the other. If two mountains are placed in the two pans of some scales, a few pounds weight can move the two, raising one, and lowering the other.
The Second Question
Consists of two signs:
The First is the Fifth Sign, and is a very brief answer to an important question:
Question: There are numerous authentic narrations about the appearance of the Mahdi at the end of time and his putting the world to rights, which will have been corrupted. However, the present time is the time of the group or social collectivity, not of the individual. However great a genius an individual person is, even a hundredfold genius, if he is not the representative of a group and if he does not represent a group’s collective personality, he will be defeated in the face of the collective personality of an opposing group. At this time, however exalted the power of his sainthood, how can he reform the world amid the widespread corruption of a human group such as that? If all the Mahdi’s works are wondrous, it would be contrary to the divine wisdom and laws in the world. We want to understand the reality of this matter of the Mahdi. How can we?
The Answer: Out of His perfect mercy, every time the Muslim community has been corrupted, Allah the Most High has sent a reformer, or a regenerator, or a vicegerent of high standing, or a supreme spiritual pole, or a perfect guide, or blessed persons resembling a Mahdi, as a mark of His protecting the Shari‘a of Islam until eternity; they have removed the corruption, reformed the nation, and preserved Muhammad’s (UWBP) religion.
Since His custom has always been thus, certainly at the time of greatest corruption at the end of time He will send a luminous person as both the greatest interpreter of the Law, and the supreme renewer, and ruler, and Mahdi, and guide, and spiritual pole, and that person will be from the Prophet’s (UWBP) Family.
Allah the Most High fills and empties the world between the heavens and earth with clouds, and in an instant stills the storms of the sea, and in an hour in spring creates samples of the summer and in an hour in summer creates a winter storm. Such an All‑Powerful One of Glory can also scatter the darkness covering the World of Islam by means of the Mahdi. He has promised this and certainly He will carry out His promise.
If considered from the point of view of divine power, it is most easy. And if thought of from the point of view of causes and divine wisdom, it is again so reasonable and necessary that thinkers have asserted that even if it had not been narrated from the Bringer of Sure News (UWBP), it still should be thus. And it will be. It is like this: All praise be to Allah, the prayer, Allah! Grant blessings to our master Muhammad and to the Family of our master Muhammad, as you granted blessings to Abraham and to the Family of Abraham, in all the world; indeed You are worthy of all praise, exalted!, which is repeated by the Muslim community five times every day in all the obligatory prayers, has self‑evidently been accepted. For like the Family of Abraham (Upon whom be peace), the members of Muhammad’s (Upon whom be blessings and peace) Family stand as commanders at the heads of all blessed chains of spiritual authorities in the assemblies of all the regions of the world in all centuries. They are so numerous that together they form a mighty army.
If they took on physical form and with their solidarity were formed into a division, if they awakened the religion of Islam and bound it together in unity and established a sort of sacred nationhood, the army of no other nation could withstand them. Thus, that numerous, powerful army is the Family of the Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), the Mahdi’s most select army.
Yes, today in the world there is no family distinguished by such high honour and elevated qualities and nobility in its descendants, in unbroken succession and well‑documented genealogy, which is as powerful and important as the line of Sayyids of the Family of the Prophet (UWBP). Since early times it is they who have been at the heads of all the groups of the people of truth, and they who have been the renowned leaders of the people of perfection. Now it is a blessed line numbering millions. Vigilant and circumspect, their hearts full of belief and love of the Prophet (UWBP), they are distinguished by the honour of their world-renowned lineage.
Momentous events shall occur which will awaken and arouse that sacred force within the vast community. Certainly, the elevated ardour in that huge force will surge up and the Mahdi shall come to lead it, guiding it to the way of truth and reality. We await from the divine law and divine mercy that it should be such, and its being such, like we await the coming of spring after winter; and we are right to await it.
Second Sign, that is, the Sixth Sign:
The Mahdi’s luminous community will repair the destruction of the innovative regime of the secret society of the Sufyan, and will restore the Prophet’s (UWBP) glorious Sunna. That is to say, the secret society of the Sufyan will try to destroy the Shari‘a of Muhammad (UWBP) in the World of Islam with the intention of denying his messengership, and will be killed and routed by the miraculous immaterial sword of the Mahdi’s community.
Moreover, in the world of humanity, the secret society of the Dajjal will overturn civilization and subvert all mankind’s sacred matters, with the intention of denying the Godhead. A zealous, self‑sacrificing community known as a Christian community but worthy of being called “Muslim Christians,” will work to unite the true religion of Jesus (Upon whom be peace) with the reality of Islam and will kill and rout that society of the Dajjal under the leadership of Jesus (UWP), thus saving humanity from atheism.
This important mystery is very lengthy. Since we have discussed it briefly in other places, here we make do with this indication.
Seventh Sign, That is, The Third Question:
They say: “Your former refutations and strivings in the way of Islam were not in your present style. Also you do not defend Islam against Europe in the manner of the philosophers and thinkers. Why have you changed the style of the Old Said? Why do you not act in the same way as those who strive for the cause of Islam by non‑physical means?
The Answer: The Old Said and certain thinkers in part accepted the principles of human and European philosophy, and contested them with their own weapons; they accepted them to a degree. They submitted unshakeably to some of their principles in the form of the physical sciences, and therefore could not demonstrate the true worth of Islam. It was quite simply as though they were grafting Islam with the branches of philosophy, the roots of which they supposed to be very deep; as though strengthening it. But since this method produced few victories and it reduced Islam’s worth to a degree, I gave it up.
And I showed in fact that Islam’s principles are so profound that the deepest principles of philosophy cannot reach them; indeed, they remain superficial beside them. The Thirtieth Word, Twenty‑Fourth Letter, and Twenty-Ninth Word have demonstrated this truth with proofs.
In the former way, philosophy was supposed to be profound and the matters of Islam, external; it was supposed that by binding it with the branches of philosophy, Islam would be preserved and made to endure. As if the principles of philosophy could in any way reach the matters of Islam!
Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which you have taught us; indeed, You are All‑Knowing, All-Wise!
Praise be to Allah, who has guided us to this [felicity]; never could we have found guidance, had it not been for the guidance of Allah; indeed, it was the truth that the prophets of our Sustainer brought to us!
Allah! Grant blessings to our master Muhammad and to the Family of our master Muhammad, as you granted blessings to our master Abraham and to the Family of Abraham, in all the worlds; indeed, You are worthy of all praise, exalted!