Third Branch
Hadiths that speak of the signs of the end of time, the events at the end of time, and the merits and rewards of certain actions have not been well understood, in consequence of which some scholars who rely on their reason have pronounced some of them to be either weak or false. While some of the scholars whose belief was weak but whose egotism was strong have gone as far as denying them. For now we shall not attempt any detailed discussion, but shall only explain twelve principles.
First Principle: This is a matter which we have explained in the question and answer at the end of the Twentieth Word. Its summary is this:
Religion is an examination, a test, which distinguishes elevated spirits from base ones. It therefore speaks of matters that everyone shall see with their eyes in the future in such a way that they remain neither altogether unknown, nor so self‑evident that everyone will be compelled to confirm them. They open the door to the reason but do not take the will from the hand. For if a sign of the Last Day appeared completely self-evidently and everyone was compelled to affirm it, then a disposition like coal would remain equal to one like diamonds. The mystery of human accountability and the results of examination would go for nothing. It is because of this that there has been much dispute over many matters like that of the Mahdi and Sufyan. Also, the narrations differ greatly; there have been statements concerning them that contradict one another.
Second Principle: There are various levels in the matters of Islam. If one requires certain proof, for another the prevailing opinion is sufficient. Others require merely assent and acceptance and not to be rejected. In which case, secondary matters or particular events in time which are not among the fundamentals of belief do not require certain belief and compliance and definite proof, just not to be rejected and to be submitted to, and not to be interfered with.
Third Principle: Most of the Jewish and Christian scholars entered Islam during the time of the Companions of the Prophet (UWBP) and their former knowledge became Muslim along with them. Some of their former knowledge was contrary to the truth but was imagined to be a part of Islam.
Fourth Principle: Some of the Hadith narrators’ own words or the meanings they assumed were considered to be part of the original texts of the Hadiths. Man cannot be free of fault, however, and some of their deductions or words which were contrary to the truth were supposed to be Hadiths and were pronounced weak.
Fifth Principle: In accordance with the inner meaning of: Among my community are transmitters of Hadiths, inferring, who are inspired, some meanings of Hadiths that were attained through the inspirations of inspired Hadith scholars who followed the path of illumination and sainthood were supposed to be wholly Hadiths. Whereas, certain obstructions may give rise to errors in the saints’ inspirations. Some Hadiths of this type may therefore be contrary to the truth.
Sixth Principle: There are certain popular, well‑known stories that heve become proverbial; their true meanings are not thought of. What comes to mind is the purpose they were spread. Thus, some stories and fables which had become well-known among people in this way, Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) told in the form of comparisons and allusions for purposes of guidance. If there are any errors in the literal meanings of stories of this sort, they arise from the people’s customs and traditions, and the way they have been transmitted among them.
Seventh Principle: There are many similes and parables that with the passage of time or with passing from the hand of learning to the hand of ignorance have been supposed to be physical fact and become erroneous. For example, two of Allah the Most High’s angels in the World of Similitudes called the Bull (Taurus) and the Fish (Pisces), who are among the supervisors of the animals of the land and the sea and are represented as a bull and fish, were imagined to be huge bull and a physical fish, and the Hadith was wrongly interpreted.
And for example, one time in the presence of the Prophet a deep rumbling was heard. Allah the Most High’s Messenger (UWBP) decreed: That is the sound of a rock that has been rolling downhill for seventy years and only now has hit the bottom of Hell. Someone who heard this Hadith but did not know the truth might have deviated into denial. But then, twenty minutes after the Hadith was spoken the truth was definitely established, for someone came and told Allah the Most High’s Messenger (UWBP): “The famous dissembler died twenty minutes ago.” Allah the Most High’s Messenger (UWBP) had described most eloquently how the dissembler’s seventy‑year lifetime of unbelief as a stone of Hell had been a continuous descent to the lowest of the low. Allah the Most High had made that rumbling heard at the moment of his death and apprised him with a sign.
Eighth Principle: In this arena of trial and realm of examination, Allah the Most High, the Absolutely Wise One, conceals things of great importance in the midst of numerous others, and this is tied to many purposes, benefits, and instances of wisdom. For example, He has hidden the Night of Power in the whole of Ramadan, and the hour when prayers are answered in the whole of Friday, and well‑accepted saints among the people generally, and the appointed hour in a person’s lifetime as well as the time of Doomsday in the life of the world. For if the time of man’s death were specified, the first half of his life would be passed in absolute heedlessness and the second, in terror, like progressing step by step to the gallows. Whereas for the balance to be preserved between this world and the next, and to remain perpetually between hope and fear, to live or die every moment has to be possible. In which case, twenty years of uncertain life are preferable to a thousand years of life that are specified.
Thus, the Last Day is the appointed hour of the world, the macroanthropos. If the time had been specified, all the Early Ages and Middle Ages would have been plunged into absolute heedlessness, and the latter centuries, into terror. Just as in his personal life man is concerned with the continued existence of his home and village, so in his social life and as a member of humankind he is concerned with the continued existence of the earth and the world. The Qur’an says, The Hour has drawn nigh. That is, Doomsday is near. The fact that it still has not occurred after a thousand or this many years does not negate its nearness. For it is the appointed hour of the world, and in relation to the life of the world one or two thousand years are like one or two days or one or two minutes in relation to a year. It is not only the appointed hour of humankind that it should be related to it and seen as distant.
It is because of this that the Absolutely Wise One conceals Doomsday in His knowledge among the Five Hidden Things. It is due to the mystery of this vagueness that every age including the Age of the Bliss, the Age of the Prophet (UWBP), people have been frightened of the end of the world. Some of them even said that the conditions had all but appeared.
Thus, unfair people who do not know this truth say: “Why with their vigilant hearts and keen sight did the Prophet’s (UWBP) Companions, who had been taught all the details of the hereafter, suppose a fact that would occur one thousand four hundred years later to be close to their century, as though their ideas had deviated a thousand years from the truth?”
The Answer: Because, through the effulgence of the Prophet’s conversation, the Companions thought of the hereafter more than anyone. They knew the world’s transience and understood the divine wisdom in the hour of Doomsday being vague, so they assumed a stance of always awaiting the world’s appointed hour and worked seriously for the hereafter. Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (Upon whom be blessings and peace) repeatedly used to say: “Expect Doomsday. Wait for it” which was prophetic guidance arising from this wisdom, not a pronouncement of Revelation concerning the specific time of its occurrence, thus being far from the truth. The cause or occasion is one thing and the wisdom or underlying purpose is another. This sort of utterance of the Prophet (UWBP) was related to the wisdom in inexplicit and ambiguous statements.
It is also due to this mystery that the persons who will come at the end of time like the Mahdi and Sufyan were expected long beforehand, even in the time of the generation succeeding the Prophet (UWBP), and the people hoped to live long enough to see them. Some of the saints, even, said that they had passed. Divine wisdom requires that the times of these persons are not specified, as with the end of the world. For every age is in need of the Mahdi’s significance, for he strengthens morale and saves the people from despair. Every century needs a share of this.
Moreover, every century the fearsome persons who appear to lead strife should be shrunk from and feared, so that people do not heedlessly follow evil nor indifferently let free the reins of the soul. If such persons had been specified, the benefits of general guidance would have been lost.
Now, the difference in the narrations about persons like the Mahdi, and their meaning, is this: the expounders of Hadiths applied the Hadith texts to their own interpretations and commentaries. For example, at that time Damascus and Medina were the centres of power, so they imagined that the events connected with the Mahdi and Sufyan would occur in places like Basra, Kufa, and Syria, which were in the region of those centres, and expounded them accordingly. Moreover, they imagined the mighty works belonging to the collective identity or community which those figures represent, to belong to their persons and they expounded them thus. They therefore ascribed those extraordinary individuals a form to them whereby when appear, everyone will recognize them. However, as we said, this world is the arena of trial. The door is opened to the reason, but the will is not taken from the hand. So, when those persons, even the terrible Dajjal, appear, to start with many people and Dajjal himself even will not know that he is the Dajjal. Those figures of the end of time will be known through the insight and light of belief.
It is narrated in a Hadith about the Dajjal, who is one of the signs of the end of time: His first day is like a year, his second day like a month, his third day like a week, and his fourth day like other days. When he appears the world will hear. He will travel the world in forty days. Some unfair people have said about this narration that it is impossible, Allah forbid, and have gone as far as to deny it and to declare it null. Whereas, And the knowledge is with Allah, the truth of it must be this:
It indicates the appearance of a person from the north who will come to lead a great current issuing forth from the godless ideas of naturalism, in the north, where the world of unbelief is at its densest, and who will be atheist. There is an instance of wisdom in this, for in the latitudes close to the North Pole the whole year is one day and one night; there are six months of night and six months of day. “One day of the Dajjal is a year” alludes to his appearance close to those latitudes. What is meant from “His second day is a month” is that passing in this direction from the north, it sometimes happens that for a month in the summer the sun does not set. This suggests that the Dajjal will emerge in the north and invade southwards towards the civilized world. By attributing the day to the Dajjal, it points to this. He comes further in this direction, and the sun does not set for a week, and so it continues until there are three hours between its rising and setting. I was in such a place while being held in Russia as a prisoner‑of-war. Near to us was a place where the sun did not set for a week. They used to go there to watch it. As for the part, “When the Dajjal appears, all the world will hear of it,” the telegraph and radio have solved it. As for his travelling the world in forty days, this has been solved by the railway and aeroplane, his mounts. Deniers who formerly considered these two statements to be impossible, now see them as commonplace!
Since in another treatise I have written in some detail about Gog and Magog and the Barrier, which are among the signs of the end of the world, I refer readers to those and here only say this: there are narrations stating that the tribes known as the Manchurians and Mongols, who threw human society into chaos and were the cause of the building of the Great Wall of China, will again overturn human civilization close to Doomsday with an idea like anarchy.
Some Atheists Say: “Where are the tribes that perform these extraordinary acts and that will perform them?”
The Answer: A calamity like locusts appears in one season in enormous numbers, then on the change of the seasons, those numerous tribes which disrupt the country consign their reality to a few limited individuals. Then, when the time comes, at the divine command, great numbers appear from those limited individuals and embark on the same corruption. As though the reality of their national identity is fined down, but not destroyed, and when the time arrives, it reemerges. In just the same way, those same tribes which overturned the world at one time will when the time comes again overturn human civilization with divine permission. But what impels them will be in a different form. None knows the Unseen save Allah the Most High.
Ninth Principle: The results of some of the questions of belief look to this restricted, narrow world, while others look to the world of the hereafter, which is broad and absolute. In order to have the appropriate effect of either encouraging or restraining, some Hadiths about the merits and rewards of actions are in an eloquent style and some unthinking people have supposed them to be exaggerated. However, since they are all pure truth and reality, they contain no exaggeration or overstatement.
For instance, this Hadith has worried the heads of the unfair more than any. The sense of it is: If the world had the value of a fly’s wing for Allah the Most High, the unbelievers would not have had so much as a mouthful of water from it, or however he expressed it. The truth of it is this: the phrase for Allah the Most High refers to the eternal realm. Yes, since a light as small as a fly’s wing from the eternal realm is everlasting, it is greater than a temporary light that fills the face of the earth. It is not to say that the huge world is equal to a fly’s wing, but that everyone’s private world which is situated within their short lives, is not equal to even a tiny amount – a fly’s wing – of an everlasting divine effulgence and bounty from the eternal realm.
Furthermore, the world has two faces, indeed, three faces. One is the mirror to Allah the Most High’s names, another looks to the hereafter and is its arable field, and the third looks to transience and non‑existence. This latter is the world of the people of misguidance which is not in accordance with the things that please Allah the Most High that we know. That is to say, the Hadith infers that the world of those who worship the world, which is opposed to the hereafter and is the source of all wrongs and the spring of calamities, is not worth a single everlasting particle that will be given to the believers in the hereafter, not the vast world which is the mirror to the most beautiful names, consists of missives of the Eternally Besought One, and is the tillage of the hereafter.
Thus, how can the unfair atheists’ understanding be compared with this most true and serious truth? What has the exaggerated and overstated meaning they fancy to do with this?
And, for example, the unfair atheists have also supposed narrations about the rewards for actions and merits of some of the Qur’an’s suras to be exaggeration and even impossible overstatement. For instance, there are narrations that state: Sura al‑Fatiha is equal in merit to the Qur’an; “Sura al‑Ikhlas equals a third of the Qur’an,” “Sura al-Zilzal, a quarter,” “Sura al-Kafirun, a quarter,” “Sura Ya. Sin., ten times the Qur’an.”
Unjust, Unthinking People Have Said: This is impossible because Sura Ya. Sin. and the other meritorious suras are part of the Qur’an, which makes the narrations meaningless.
The Answer: The truth is this: for each of the All‑Wise Qur’an’s letters is a merit. Each is a good deed. Out of divine grace the merits of those letters sprout and yield sometimes ten, sometimes seventy, and sometimes seven hundred, merits, like the letters of Ayat al‑Kursi. Sometimes they yield one thousand five hundred, like the letters of Sura al‑Ikhlas, and sometimes ten thousand, like verses recited on the Night of Acquittal and those that coincide with other acceptable times. And sometimes they yield thirty thousand, like verses recited on the Night of Power, which are like poppy seeds in their multiplicity. This is understood from the verse indicating that that night was better than a thousand nights: a single letter on that night yields thirty thousand merits. Thus, with its multiplication of merits the All‑Wise Qur’an is surely incomparable, comparisons cannot be made with it. Nevertheless, parallels may be drawn between its essential merits and some suras.
For example, let us suppose there is a field planted with maize, one thousand plants of it. If some seeds produce seven shoots and from each shoot a hundred grains appear, then a single seed becomes the equivalent of two thirds of the whole field. Or, if one seed produces ten shoots, and each yields two hundred grains, then a single seed is the equivalent of twice the original field. You can make further analogies in the same way.
Now, let us imagine the All‑Wise Qur’an to be a luminous, sacred, heavenly field. Each of its letters together with its original merit is like a seed. Their shoots will not be taken into consideration. They may be compared with the suras and verses about which are narrations concerning their merits, like Ya. Sin., Ikhlas, Fatiha, Kafirun, Zilzal.
For example, the Qur’an has three hundred thousand six hundred and twenty letters, and Sura al‑Ikhlas together with Bismillah, sixty‑nine. Three times sixty-nine is two hundred and seven letters, so the merits of each letter of Sura al-Ikhlas number nearly one thousand five hundred.
Thus, if Sura Ya. Sin.’s letters are reckoned and compared with all the letters of the All‑Wise Qur’an, and then multiplied ten times, it produces the following result: each letter of Sura Ya. Sin. has close on five hundred merits. That is, good deeds to that number may be reckoned.
And so, if you apply the others to this, you will understand what a subtle, fine, true, and unexaggerated truth it is.
Tenth Principle: Like with most of the other sorts of creatures, there are among humankind certain individuals who are extraordinary by virtue of their acts and deeds. If they have advanced in good deeds, they have been the cause of pride of humankind. Otherwise, they have been the cause of humanity’s shame. Also, they are hidden. It is as though each becomes a collective identity, an imaginary goal. Other individuals try to emulate them, and it is possible. This means that since they are absolute and indefinite, it is possible for such perfect, extraordinary persons to be present everywhere. In regard to this indefiniteness, according to logic, their universality may be posited in the form of a possible proposition. That is, it is possible for all acts to produce the following result:
For example, Whoever performs two rak’ats of prayers at such and such a time has performed the equivalent of the Hajj. It is thus the truth that at certain times two rak’ats of prayers may be the equivalent of the Hajj. Due to its universality, this meaning may apply to all prayers of two rak’ats. This means that what narrations of this sort refer to is not in fact continuous and universal; this is disallowed because there are conditions of acceptance. It is either temporary and absolute or possible and universal. That is to say, the universality in this sort of Hadith is in regard to possibility.
For example, “Backbiting is like murder.” This means, there is a sort of backbiting that is more harmful than deadly poison, like a killer. And for example, A good word is a deed so good it is like freeing a slave.
Here, in order to encourage and motivate, it points out the possibility of the unspecific perfect individual being present everywhere in absolute form as though it is actually the case, thus arousing eagerness for good and disgust for evil.
Furthermore, the things of the eternal world cannot be measured with the scales of this world. The greatest thing here is not equal to the least thing there. The merits of actions look to that world; our worldly view is too narrow for them; we cannot fit them into our minds. For example, Whoever reads this is given the reward of Moses and Aaron. That is to say: All praise be to Allah, Sustainer of the heavens and Sustainer of the earth ❋ Sustainer of all the worlds, His is the might in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. ❋ All praise be to Allah, Sustainer of the heavens and Sustainer of the earths, ❋ Sustainer of all the worlds, and His is the sublimity in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. ❋ And His is the dominion, Sustainer of the heavens, and He is the Mighty, the Wise.
What has most attracted the attention of the unfair and the unthinking is narrations like these. The reality of the matter is this: With our narrow minds and short views in this world, we know how great we imagine the rewards of Moses and Aaron (Upon whom be peace) to be. The reward the Absolutely Compassionate One will give to one of His infinitely needy servants in the world of eternity and everlasting happiness in return for a single invocation may be equal to the reward of those two, but equal to the rewards as we conceive of them and surmise them to be.
For example, there is a primitive, uncouth man who has never seen the king and does not know the majesty of his rule. He imagines a village headman, and with his limited ideas thinks of the king as a more exalted version of him. Long ago with us even, there was a simple‑minded tribe who used to say: “Our chief knows what the sultan does as he cooks his bulgur soup on his stove in a saucepan.” That is to say, they imagined the sultan in such a narrow situation and so common a form that he cooked his own wheat soup; they supposed him to have the grandness of a captain. Now, if someone were to say to a member of the tribe: “If you do this job for me today, I’ll give you as much grandeur as you think the sultan has; that is, a rank as high as a captain.” To say that is right, because with his limited mind, the tribesman can only conceive of the grandeur of kingship as the grandness of a captain.
Thus, with our worldly views and narrow minds, we cannot envisage the true rewards which look to the hereafter, even as much as that primitive man. We cannot reckon the true rewards of Moses and Aaron (Upon whom be peace), which are unknown to us. For according to the rule of similes and comparisons, the unknown is compared to the known. So the true reward, which we do not know, for an invocation of one of Allah the Most High’s believing servants is compared with the rewards that we do know and may surmise.
Moreover, the surface of the sea and the heart of a droplet are equal when it comes to holding a total reflection of the sun. The difference is only in quality. The reward reflected in the mirrors of the ocean‑like spirits of Moses and Aaron (Upon whom be peace) is exactly the same in nature as the reward that a believing servant, who is like a droplet, receives from a Qur’anic verse. They are the same in nature and quantity, while their quality is dependent on capacity.
Also, it sometimes happens that a single word, a single glorification, opens a treasury of happiness that does not open with sixty years of striving. That is to say, it sometimes happens that a single verse may be as beneficial as the Qur’an.
Also, the divine effulgence which Allah the Most High’s Noble Messenger (UWBP), who manifested the greatest name, received from a single verse, may have been as much as all the effulgence one of the other prophets ever received. And it would not be contrary to the truth to say that a believer who through the legacy of prophethood manifests the shadow of the greatest name, receives, in accordance with his own capacity and in regard to quantity, a reward as great as a prophet’s effulgence.
Furthermore, reward and merit are from the World of Light, and one world from that world may be contained in a speck. Just as the heavens and all its stars may appear in a tiny fragment of glass, so reward and merit as luminous as the heavens may be contained in an invocation or verse which acquires transparency through a pure intention.
Conclusion: O unfair, unthinking, self‑centred, cavilling man whose belief is weak and philosophy, strong! Consider these ten principles, then don’t make a narration you thought was contrary to the truth and opposed to reality the pretext for objecting to Hadiths, thus casting aspersions on the Noble Messenger’s (UWBP) sinlessness! Firstly, these ten principles and what they entail will make you give up your denial. They say: “If there is any real fault, it is ours,” it may not be ascribed to the Hadiths. They say too: “If the fault is not real, it springs from your misunderstanding.”
In short; if anyone undertakes to deny and reject them, he has first to deny these ten principles and show them to be false. Now, if you are fair, having studied these principles with due attention, do not attempt to deny a Hadith your reason considers to be contrary to the truth! Say: “There is either an explanation, or an interpretation, or an exegesis of this,” and do not criticize it!
Eleventh Principle: Just as the Qur’an has obscure verses which are in need of interpretation or else require absolute submission, Hadiths also contain difficulties like the obscurities of the Qur’an. They are sometimes in need of extremely careful expounding and interpretation. The above examples may be sufficient for you.
Yes, someone who is awake interprets the dream of someone else who is sleeping, and sometimes someone who is sleeping hears the words spoken by others nearby him who are awake, but he gives them some meaning and interprets them in a way that applies to his own world of sleep. O man stupified by the sleep of heedlessness and philosophy! Do not deny in your dream what the Being saw who manifested the meaning of, His eye never wavered nor did it swerve, and My eye sleeps, but my heart sleeps not, and who was truly awake and aware; interpret it. Yes, if a mosquito bites someone who is asleep, the person sometimes dreams that he has received terrible wounds in war and this has a reality in sleep. If he is questioned, he says: “Truly I have been wounded. Guns and rifles were fired at me.” Those sitting by him laugh at his anguish in sleep. Thus, the sleep‑stained view of heedlessness and philosophical thought certainly cannot be the criterion for the truths of prophethood.
Twelfth Principle: Since prophethood, the affirmation of divine unity, and belief all look to unity, the hereafter, and the Godhead, they see truth and reality accordingly. While philosophers and scientists look to multiplicity, causes, and nature, and see in accordance with them. Their points of view are extremely distant from one another. The greatest aim of the people of philosophy is so small and insignificant as to be imperceptible among the aims of the scholars of religion and theology.
It is because of this that scientists have advanced greatly in detailed explanation of the nature of beings and their minutest states, but they are so far behind the exalted divine sciences and sciences concerned with the hereafter, which are true wisdom and knowledge, that they are more backward than a simple believer. People who do not understand this mystery suppose the investigative scholars of Islam to be backward relatively to the philosophers. But how can those whose minds see no further than their eyes and are submerged in multiplicity reach those who follow elevated sacred aims through the legacy of prophethood?
Furthermore, when something is considered from two points of view, it shows two different truths, and both of them may be the truth. No certain fact of science can touch the sacred truths of the Qur’an. The short hand of science cannot reach up to its pure sublimity. We shall mention an example to illustrate this.
For example, if the globe of the earth is considered from the point of view of the people of science, its reality is this: as a middle‑sized planet, it revolves around the sun amid countless stars; it is a small creature in relation to the stars. But as is explained in the Fifteenth Word, if it is considered from the point of view of the people of the Qur’an, its reality is this: since man, the fruit of the world, is a most comprehensive, most wondrous, most impotent, most precious, most weak, and most subtle miracle of divine power, the earth, his cradle and dwelling-place, is in regard to meaning and art, the universe’s heart and centre; despite its smallness and lowliness in relation to the heavens, it is the display and exhibition of all the miracles of divine art; the place of reflection and point of focus of the manifestations of all the divine names; the place of display and reflection of infinite dominical activity; the means and market of boundless divine creativity and especially the munificent creation of the numerous species of plants and small animals; and the place in small measure of samples of the creatures of the broad worlds of the hereafter; it is a rapidly working loom weaving everlasting textiles; the swiftly changing place producing views for eternal panoramas; and the narrow and temporary arable field and seedbed producing at speed the seeds for everlasting gardens.
It is because of this vastness of meaning and importance of art of the earth that the All‑Wise Qur’an holds it – like a tiny fruit of the vast tree of the heavens – equal to all the heavens, like holding a tiny heart equivalent to a huge body. It places it in one pan of a scales and places all the heavens in the other, and repeatedly says: Sustainer of the heavens and the earth.
Compare other matters with this and understand that the soulless, dim truths of philosophy cannot clash with the brilliant, living truths of the Qur’an. Since the points of view are different, they appear differently.