Shia Islamic Belief System 4/46

'A'udhu bil-Lahi, min al-Shaytan, al-rajim. Bismillah, Al-Rahman, Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulil-Lahi Rabbi 'l-Alameen, wa as-salat wa as-salam 'ala Sayyidina wa Nabiyyina, Abul Qasim al-Mustafa, Muhammad, wa 'ala Ahli Baytihi, at-tayyibin, at-tahirin.

Welcome brothers and sisters to another session of Mizan Live discussing the Shia Imamiyyah doctrine. This, I think, is our fourth session, if I'm not mistaken and we're making progress Alhamdulillah. I'm just getting back from a course that we did in Toronto, the same death and barzakh course, that's doing the rounds right now. Alhamdulillah, it went very well and was very lively and I thank all the brothers and sisters involved there and the ones who made it possible and the ones who attended, it was wonderful. InshaAllah this week we're going to New York to see how that goes.

All right. So let's get right to it. Before I begin, just to remind everyone who might be watching that what we are doing these days is that we are covering the book. The book by Ayatullah Subhani, Compendium. The Compendium of Shia Imamiyyah Beliefs, where you have 150 articles of the Shia faith there in concise format, where he discusses what the Shia believe in. Give some reasoning for some of the articles that he explains.

But all in all is a very concise book. I've explained before why I chose this book. And so we got to article number nine and Alaykum Salaam Sister Zainab, and we got to article number nine, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. And so I'm going to pick up from there. We are right now, the chapter that we're in is talking about existence in Islam, this is existence in general. Before that, what we had was article number six to eight were also regarding this existence in Islam or from the Islamic perspective. The sixth article was that the universe is the creation of God, but it is not at the same time begotten by God as some people might think.

Then we had the seventh article which spoke about how this universe is not eternal, it'll change, it will undergo change, and and a verse cited for that. Article number eight talked about causality and the whole idea of how causality governs the universe. But if we do have, if we have causality in the world at the same time, it doesn't mean that God has nothing to do with this world. So we are not the type who thinks God is doing everything, and we're not we don't have anything to do with it with the universe. At the same time, we we don't believe that, ok, God, just like a watchmaker made this watch of the universe and just left it alone and it's going to be functioning on its own. That's not how it works either. Something in between these to. Wa 'alaikum assalam Brother Amir Muhammad al-Astigharee, welcome.

OK, so these are the are the articles that we had in this chapter that we covered last week, continuing with article number nine. Article number nine, says that when we say existence, existence is not equal to the natural world or the natural universe, let's call it. Existence, one of the levels of existence is the natural world, is the natural universe. But that doesn't mean that this is all of existence either. No. It makes a part of existence, but there's a lot of other layers of existence and forms of existence out there that might not fall under the category of the natural world.

Yes, and that part of existence that doesn't fall under the natural world is referred to as the realm of ghaib, 'alam al-ghaib, the place where there is no shuhud for us, we don't see it, in other words, the unseen. The unseen doesn't mean it's not exist, it doesn't exist. It just means it's not sensible by one of the five senses. Right. The most important of them, of course, being vision. So the unseen means the unseen, the unheard, the un-tasteable, un-smellable, untouchable, something that's not material, in other words. The unseen refers to all of them.

So existence comprises of the natural world, the natural universe plus, plus the unseen as well. Wa 'alaikum assalam Brother Shuja, and brother Muhammad Isusfdhae, welcome. So he explains that a little bit and then he gets into this, he gets into this point, then he says, look people, the same way, this is one of the Shia beliefs or Islamic beliefs, the same way that you will have causality, as was mentioned in article number eight, the same way you'll have causality in a cause/effect relationship between phenomena in this natural universe, you will also have a cause and effect relationship between this physical material, natural world and the metaphysical as well.

These, these two are related in the sense that the metaphysical and the supernatural sometimes has an effect on the physical. He gives a few examples. The least, the least is to say that the angels have an effect on this world. Yes? Angels are metaphysical beings. The Qur'an very clearly states, as he says here, Surat Nazia'at, verse five. He says: "fal mudabbirati imra"(79:5). Allah swears by the ones who are mudabbir. Yes? They are managing things, they are taking care of things, talking about the angels, fal muddabirati imra, the ones who have the affairs of this dunya, this natural universe in their hands. They're the ones who are taking care of things and making things work, making sure things work and so on and so forth.

Wa as-salamu alaikum Brother 'Ammar Khan and wa 'alika as-salam Sister Shermeen. It's so good to have all of you. All right. So fal muddabirati imra is one. This Surat al-Nazi'at, wa nazi'atee gharka wa nasheetatee nashta (79:1-2) and so on, it's swearing by all of these angels, the different angels. Ok these angels what's their job? Their job is they intervene or they have responsibilities regarding this real world that this quote unquote, I don't want to say real world, this natural world that we live in. So they are the cause of certain things. The Qur'an even reveals that a little bit. For example, in Surat Badr, in the battle of Badr, the Qur'an clearly states that in the battle of Allah sent angels to help. And then it was the angels who helped the mu'minin be victorious.

Another verse that he cites here, Ayatullah Subhani, "wa huwa al-qaheeru fauqa 'ibadihi wa yursilu 'alaikum hafadhatan" (6:61), that Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala is the one who is overpowering all of his servants and has power over all of them and sends upon you hafadha. Hafadha is the plural of hafidh, which means protector. Once again, these angels, they're protecting. We have hadiths, for example, of when you go for Ziyarah, how the angels are accompanying you, etc. So we have all these things going on. Of course we don't see, but it's in the unseen. Just because it's in the unseen doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Even in this natural world everyone knows there are things that we cannot see with our eyes as human beings but an animal might be able to see or sense. Ultraviolet light, infrared light, all of these things are there, everyone believes it, but they just can't be seen by the naked eye.

Now, some things cannot even be seen by, with optical aid even. Why? Because they are metaphysical. Just because they're metaphysical doesn't mean they don't exist. So there is this whole thing of this whole system of causes and effects in the natural world, we covered that in article eight. At the same time, there is a bunch of things outside of this physical, natural world, above metaphysical that are also having an effect. Some verses or excuse me, some hadiths talk about how some sins will bring about certain calamities. Well what does that have to do with what? What does something that we're doing here have to do with something above? If I'm standing here, what does something from above have to affect the natural world?

But the Qur'an clearly says that this is because "dhahara al-fasadu fil barri wal bahrri bima kasabat aydi an-nas" (30:41). That the people with the sins that they are doing, 'Alama Tababat'i explains this, with the sins that they are doing, they're causing corruption in the natural world. Things don't work anymore, it doesn't rain properly sometimes, you know, things like that. Although, that's not the only reason. If you see that there's a drought, you can't just say, oh, it's because people are sinning, but sometimes that can also contribute.

So I'm saying all of this to explain how there is a relationship and causality relationship, cause and effect relationship between the metaphysical and the physical. All of these are elements of existence. So part of existence is only the physical world. The rest is the unseen, but it's also part of existence. All right, Brother 'Ammar Khan says, please talk about the infallibility of our Imams, hey, if you keep tuning in, we'll get there InshaAllah, it's going to be nice, actually. Once we get through these beginning discussions, we will reach Imamah and when we get to Imamah, we're going to see all of the reasoning there, as wel,l as per Ayatullah Subhani's book of course. I'll explain all of those.

All right. And what you're asking about how Imam Husayn sacrificed, he knew it, but it wasn't suicide, that's, of course, something that has to do with the knowledge of an Imam, which is very divine. And there's an explanation to that. If you explain it properly, then this whole idea of, oh, he knew, so it's suicide goes out the window. InshaAllah, let's see if that comes up when we get there. Sister Zahra, Brother Mohammed Mumdani and Sayyida Fatima Kazmi, have all said salaam and salaam unto them, wa 'alaikum salaam. And Brother Shuja says he'll see me in New York InshaAllah. OK, looking forward to see you Brother Shuja. All right. So that's the article number eight.

Article number nine, that all of existence is not comprised of just the physical, natural world and that the metaphysical realm has an effect on the physical realm. Once again, he doesn't get into too much detail here, as I said, he keeps it concise. Brother Bilal has a good question. He says "Are there any books you can recommend that explain the connection of the physical and metaphysical via the sciences?" Man, that's a hard one. I can't think of anything right now, and I don't think I'll be able to think of anything. There might be some things out there. But, you know, at the end of the day, the sciences won't, the science when you say via the sciences, I don't think the sciences will be able to figure things out because the sciences are limited to the physical realm at the end of the day.

The only thing that can reveal certain relationships between the physical and the metaphysical, as you've probably guessed, is through revelation. Wahy meaning the Qur'an, or through the ahadith that we have that we can rely on, of course. That might reveal that there's a relationship between this act and certain things happening and certain natural phenomena. For example, I'll give you an example. One of those things that's really, you know, it's for sure, is the concept of Silat al-Rahim and Qati'at al-Rahim. We have many hadiths about how a person who cuts ties with his family, with his relatives, with his blood relatives or her blood relatives, this person's life might get might be cut short or shorter than it was supposed to go. You understand?

Now, which science is going to tell us that? Which empirical data that we've compiled and put together is going to give us a conclusion like that? The only thing that can give us that conclusion is, you know, accessing something that has access to the unseen which is the Imams or the Holy Prophet or the Qur'an. So, Surat al-Rahim, for example, is one of those things. For example, that it says that many hadiths will tell us that if you cut ties, you cut ties with blood relatives, even if they may not be the best people, you're going to be in trouble. One of those things that it has an effect on is your life span in this world. Subhana Allah. Why is that? How does that work? We don't know, we don't know.

But the hadiths are revealing to us that there is a link. And many other things as well that we have in our hadith. So that's where you have to probably go to. Now, have this hadiths all been compiled under one title and in one book, one book, Brother Bilal? That says, you know, the title is Those Things That Affect Our Worldly Life. That are also linked with the metaphysical world. I haven't seen a book like that, haven't heard of a book like that, but it might be out there, you know, it might just be that I'm limited. My limited knowledge is lacking in that regard. All right, that's article number nine.

Article ten says that the universe, we were talking about creation and existence and all of that, right? The universe is a reality that is guided, is headed in a certain direction. We have two types of guidance, brothers and sisters. We have takwini guidance and we have tashri'i guidance. So let me explain this a little bit. These two words might sound a little hard to understand, I hope I can explain them. Tashri' comes from legislation, comes from law. Sometimes God tells us do this, don't do that. This will get you to jannah, this will get you to jahannam. This is guidance, but this is legislative guidance. They call it tashri'i, comes from shara', shari'a, comes from these things, they have the same root.

The guidance that God provides to people so that they can secure their felicity in the hereafter. Right. Or even have good lives here in this world. That's something we'll talk about later, Ayatullah Subhani. We'll talk about this later. Now, here, when he says the universe is a reality that is guided, it enjoys guidance from God and divine guidance. What is meant here is not that legislative guidance that I just talked about. The universe, the stars, the moon, God isn't telling them, hey, this is what you should do, or else you go to jahannam, think about it. Think about it. If God says, tells the sun, God tells the sun, you better orbit in this way or let the Earth orbit around you in this way. If you don't I'm going to send you to jahannam, oh, sun or oh moon. You know? That's funny. The sun or the moon going to jahannam, doesn't make sense. Hidaya and this tashri'i legislative guidance belongs to those things out there that have free will. So we'll talk about that, as I said later.

Wa 'alaikum salaam Hussein. How Seattle? How's the weather in Seattle, brother?You get some random comments here. Brother Shuja ok, thank you. You're the one who's going to pick me up, ok, great. All right. Now, looking forward to seeing you InshaAllah. But there's another form of guidance. It's a takwini guidance, not a tashri'i guidance. Takwini guidance means that God shows the way for things in this universe, not just people or things with free will, no. Everything is moving in the direction of perfection, let's call it, although that's not a good word here, but kamal and perfection. Where if left alone, they will reach their ultimate you know, growth in this world.

So, for example, if you plant a seed and you water it and nothing gets in the way, there's no stone on top of it, I don't know that the sun is shining and you know, it's not up. The soil, it stays the way it is and the seed doesn't come out of the soil. What's going to happen brothers and sisters? Eventually it's going to grow. It's going to sprout and then it'll slowly grow into a tree. Now, someone might come and kick it or burn it or cut it, or, if none of that happens, though, it'll grow into what it's supposed to grow into. Everything. It's moving on those tracks that God has put them on in the direction they're supposed to be moving.

Here Ayatullah Subhani, he explains this. This is what he's talking about. He says everything in this universe is moving in a certain direction that God has specified for it. It's not like things are just happening randomly. No, everything has a destination that it's headed towards. I'm not talking about the yawm al-qiyama, a destination even in this world where it's going to reach. Now is it up to them or not? It's not up to them. It's not something legislative where God says, hey, a plant, if you want to grow, grow, but if you don't want to grow, don't grow.

If you water a plant enough, it'll grow into the tree that it's supposed to grow into, unless something gets in the way of it, of course. But things are moving in the direction they're supposed to move in. A human being, whether you like it or not, you know, your kids are like cute and chunky and chubby, right, in the beginning, like when they're six month old, five months old and you just want them to stay like that. But the more they eat and once you wean them off of mommy's milk and now they're going to have solid foods, slowly, slowly, they grow their metabolism changes and everything. Before you know those beautiful chubby cheeks that are so adorable are gone and this kid is growing, whether you like it or not. And then they hit puberty and they become like, so ugly right? And then they just keep growing and then they get better and better and MashaAllah before, you know, an adult.

But now the question is, if this person didn't want to grow, would that happen? No, they would still grow unless they stopped eating food but that's not going to happen or else they'll die. So they're eating food so that they can't expect to not grow. Everything is going to be moving in that direction, that nature. Now, if an atheist was to be speaking instead of me, he would say that nature has determined for it. That is not nature. That according to the Qur'an, is Allah's Subhana wa Ta'la's work.

For example, Surat Ta Ha, verse 50. "Rabbuna alladhee 'ata kulla shayin khalqahu thumma hada"(20:50), Allah is the One, Your Lord is the One who gave everything its creation and created everything. "Thumma hadha". And then after He created it, He guided it. In what direction? It's talking about things, kulla shay, everything. It's not talking about people or jinn or anything that has free will, it's talking about every thing. He created every thing and gave it its guidance or or guided it. Guided in what direction? In that direction is supposed to go in this natural physical realm or universe. Yeah. So Allah is behind that as well Ayatullah Subhani is saying. So we have two types of guidance. Tashri'i, the guidance that God provides that we can take and we can turn away from. That secures our akhira if we take it. And it has to do with our free will.

There is another guidance that we talked about in this article where that God gives, whether you like it or not, it's going to happen, it has nothing to do with our free will, and it doesn't have to do with the akhira, it has to do with this dunya. This is something that the Qur'an has spoken about. This not just this verse either. Sabbih isma rabbika al-'Ala (87:1), alladhee khalaqa fasawwa (87:2), wa alladhee qaddara fahada (87:3). Once again over there it says, He's the One who guided, but the context is not talking about the people, is talking about everything. So God has guided every thing, guided every thing. This guidance is called takwini guidance. This is what he's talking about here.

Wa 'alaikum Shadee Firaree. If I'm not mistaken, you're from Australia. Good to have you and to see you. You were a regular during the Ramadhan programmes as well. Thanks for coming. Brother Bilal, he says Jazakallah, a follow up. And some things I've read about, for example, the soul in barzakh and Ayatullah Dasdaghaib's book Ma'ad, the way he explains and describes the soul you think it's made of the same matter, protons, neutrons and electrons.

I guess my question is that can we think of the metaphysical and the physical the same? Please let me know if that makes sense and feel free to ignore the question if it's irrelevant. It's not totally irrelevant. This is actually something that we're covering right now in our Death and Barzakh Course. InshaAllah try to make it to that. We'll cover it there in detail. Yeah, it sounds like in the barzakh, we have bodies like this world, but there's a difference.

It's not matter, like you said where you have protons and neutrons and electrons, but rather it's something else. It's something else that you know, that we cover in that course that's going around right now. We have hadiths about that as well that explain it and so on. So I guess I should just leave it right there. All I'll say is that it's not a material body, in the barzakh no, we do not have a material body according to philosophy. And even the hadiths that speak about it can be understood in that way, that it's not a physical body. But yes, there is something, something, but it's not a matter and material. Also I don't know what you mean when you say that's kind of like evolution who you're referring to, my comment or his comment or question or so if you could specify. All right. So that's article number ten.

Article number 11 talks about how this universe is the nidhaam akmal and nidhaam ahsan. Akmal means the most complete. Ahsan means the best, it's the best that you'll get. And there's a reason why I word it like this. If you are going to have a material world, a material realm, a physical universe a material universe, this is the best it can be. Nidhaam means system. Ahsan means best. Akmal means most complete. So, this nidham, ahsan, akmal, we have to talk about it. Where in the Qur'an does it say that everything God has created is good, is the best it could be?

Surah Sajdah, verse number seven says this. It says: "alladhi ahsana kulla shayin khalaqahu" (32:7). If the verse that we covered in article ten said He's the one who created everything, "alladhi 'ataq kulla shayin khalqahu" (20:50). Here it says anything He created, which is everything, will be the best they can be, "ahsana kulla shayin khalaqahu" (32:7), He has created everything in a good way and some might interpret this verse as the best way it could be. Ahsana kulla shayin khalaqahum.

Or another verse that he refers to Surah Mu'mininun, verse 14, fa tabaraka Allahu ahsanu al-khaliqeen" (23:14). That famous verse after Allah creates us and then blows the soul in us and then it's as if He sits back and looks at us and He says Wow! Tabaraka Allah. How High and Lofty God is? Magnificent is He. Ahsanu al-khaliqeen, the best of Creators. So if He's the best of Creators, Ayatullah Subhani says, if you're the best of Creators that means your creation is going to be the best of creation. Doesn't make sense for you to be the best of Creators, but your creations are normal, mediocre, nothing too special about it. No.

That's one argument that if He is the best of Creators that His Creation will be the best of creation. This is one argument he proposes. The second one, he says God is All-wise at the same time as well. If someone has a problem with God being All Wise that means they just don't know what God is then. If you believe in God, you can't believe in a God that is not All Wise. God equals All Wise. Just like the number ten necessitates divisibility by two, God necessitates wisdom. You can't call something a God unless it's the All wise and has the most wisdom.

So he says, the fact that God is All Wise is that if there is a possibility, let's say there was ten different ways to create the universe. One was the best, one was the ninth best way, the next one was the eighth best way and so on. If there are ten ways to create the universe, one is the best, one is the worst, and the rest are in between and God creates then like, you know, the third best, not the best of the best, that goes against His Wisdom. A wise person will do everything that they have power of, right? If he doesn't have the power or doesn't have the wisdom for it, that's another story, but that goes against him being God. He has the Power, He has the wisdom, and He's not going to create the best, it goes against everything that God stands for.

So the fact that He is All Wise and He understands that the purpose of creation can be attained through the best way of creation, of course, He is going to do it the best way possible. So that means that this universe that we have, brothers and sisters, with all the problems in it, of course, that I'll talk about it a little bit later. This universe, with all of its flaws, quote unquote, and problems, what is it? It is still the best you can get. OK, the sole man asks, well what about all those problems and flaws and earthquakes and death and all that kind of stuff? This falls under the category of theodicy. Theodicy is what answers this question and the whole question of suffering, and why does God let suffering happen? Let me explain it like this for now, that brothers and sisters, if it's going to be a material world, there will be suffering in it, there's no way out of it.

Either God is not suppose, it doesn't bring us to a material world, or if He does, this is part and parcel of the material world. Why doesn't He get in the way of all of that? That's stuff that we have to discuss some other time. There's a reason for all of that. It's not like God can't or doesn't want. There's a reason for all of that. The material world is a place that we're supposed to be. Material world equals these problems, these flaws. Is it the problem with the Creator? No. It's the format of the creation. Matter and material has this problem, that there will be clash, friction, tension. When this happens, suffering will take place. Suffering is going to be relative, though. So anyway, that's a long story I don't want to get into. He says he'll get he'll get into that later.

One last thing before I get to answer to this question. Brothers and sisters, we have to understand this might be a mistake that some people have made in the past, and that is that when it is said this is the best way, this is the best way of creation, this creation, this universe is the best that it could have been. It doesn't mean it's perfect, this is a big mistake. Some people, this is a big mistake people make, that oh, look, the argument for God is the fine tuning of the universe and that everything is perfect.

But look, we don't see perfection, we see other problems, as a matter of fact. Brothers and sisters, in the material world, remember this, this is like a golden line. In material world can never be perfect, there is no perfection. And if you remember, like ten, 20 minutes ago when I was talking about the taqwini guidance of God and how everything is moving towards perfection, I said, you know, for lack of better terms, I'm saying towards perfection, or else the material world does not have perfection in it.

Matter cannot be perfect, ever. Any form of restriction cannot be perfect. So it's not just matter, and even non-physical beings, angels aren't perfect, perfect, because once again, there's restriction that they have. In other words, the only perfect being out there, is existence in its entirety which is Allah Subhana Allah. Allah Subhana wa Ta'la, is the only perfection. Anyone who attaches to Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala becomes one with Him in a sense, they might attain perfection, too. Or else the lowest level of existence which is the material world, is not going to be, you're never going to find perfection in it. Okay? Let's leave it at that for now.

Oh, look at that, Brother Sahoor is online, salams Sahoor, good to see you. Um, Ali Rizvi, it was discussed in last week's session, oh excuse me. How will the tension exist when the Imam comes? When I say tension, I don't mean tension in the sense of, oh, there's tension between me and somebody else, necessarily. What I mean by tension is that things bump into each other, you know, you get hungry, I don't know, you get thirsty, you get tired, you know, that's what I mean by friction, slash tensions slash clash and all these things. In the material world, these are the things that come, these are the things that come with the material world. That's all I'm saying. It's inevitable and unavoidable.

Um, Brother Sutudah, now let's get to what you were talking about, next level stuff. He says that's kind of like evolution, the concept of universe heading towards its own growth. So like the ultimate growth of the universe would be to produce an intelligent being. Yeah, I don't know if you can call that evolution or not, and I don't think that the the universe yielding an intelligent human being is also its perfection.

But we do have a concept called harakah johariyyah, which is a philosophical one, and it's a complicated one as well, where this universe is undergoing harakah johariyyah, essential motion, I guess they call it, I don't know. But that's beyond our talk right now, I don't want to get into that at all. That's the only form of, you know, completion that we have in this world. It's a philosophical concept.

Article number 12. What time is it? Well, we got time. Article number 12. So if article number ten, what was it? Or nine, nine was, so we're talking about the universe in existence, right? That existence is not equal to natural world and physical world only, it's more than that, number one. Number two, Article ten, that the universe is a reality that is enjoying takwini guidance from God and is moving in that direction, which is it's supposed to. Next article, Article 11. That this, the system governing creation and the physical universe and the way that the physical universe has been created and the fine tuning involved in this universe, all of that is what all of that is the best it can be, the best. If you were to build, if you were to create a material realm, a material universe, this is what it would look like. This this is the best it could look like. This is the best it could look like. And Allah Subhana wa Ta'la points this out a lot throughout verses of the Qur'an and in a way, keeps hinting at the argument from design.

That look at the design out there, look at how perfect things are working. And once again, I don't want to use that word. Look at how good things are working. Look at how coherent things are. Even when there's an earthquake. As a matter of fact, that is cause and effect working, and that's the effect that comes out of it, an earthquake, you know. Certain causes will yield certain effects. It's very interesting. So, I personally love this argument from design, although some people, they might hate on it a little bit. There's an explanation, I think, that really finishes the job with the argument from design.

Bilal says Sheikh, one hour a week is not enough for this topic. Such a brilliant topic and amazing explanation. OK, thank you so much for that, for the kind words. If I notice that this session is being received well, I'll add more. But, you know, we're right now, we're at a steady number of viewers and I feel like that's enough for now. If it comes to a point where I feel like, OK, now there's something that has, people have spread enough because it's not just up to us brothers and sisters who are watching. It's not just in our hands to get this message out to people. At the end of the day, this is a Facebook live session, not everyone uses Facebook.

Not everyone who uses Facebook really knows about Facebook live or might use it too much. Those who use it might not even know about this happening, about this session that we're having happening. So it's really up to you guys, spreading the word, you know, letting people know, inviting them, sending the link. Like right now at the top of my browser, the link is there. Copy, pasting that to your WhatsApp groups, telling people that, hey, we think you should tune into this, you know, it's something that you could benefit from. Because to be honest with you guys, I know the people out there, are many people out there who would appreciate something like this, but the word doesn't spread that easily. Yeah. So each of you can be our media and Mizan Institute's media, and get the word out. Really, sometimes I feel like lots of the stuff is going to waste because not enough. It's not the stuff that's going to waste. It's not being benefited from to its full potential because the word hasn't spread that much.

But anyway, let's get back to what we were talking about here. Twelfth article says that since this universe is the creation of Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala and Allah or God here, that we haven't reached Allah yet, God. God is Ultimate and Absolute Truth. So, if God is Ultimate and Absolute Truth, then His Creation is going to also have truth to it. What does that mean? What do you mean Ayatullah Subhani when you use the word Haqq? He uses Haqq, sometimes Haqq and truth is used opposite to falsehood, meaning batil. Sometimes Haqq is used opposite to 'abath and purposelessness. Here that's what he's talking about because the farsi says that.

Sister Safia says never underestimate seeds, you know. The thing is, Sister Safia, we're planting seeds, but I don't know. We're planting the seeds, but sometimes you just have a garden full of seeds, you know? No, InshaAllah, I agree, I agree and totally. That's why we're going to continue what we're doing and not give up InshaAllah. And you guys also InshaAllah, help us out. Ayatullah Subhani, here he says, since God created the universe and God is Haqq and God has a purpose in everything, then this is also going to be Haqq. The creation of the universe is going to also be Haqq, meaning it's not 'abath, it's not purposeless. It's not that it's for no reason at all. God just created because He just wanted to have a good time or something creating because creating is fun or something. No, no, no. There is a purpose in it.

Why? Why would you say that there's going to be a purpose in it? Because God is All Wise again. He says He's All Wise, He's Hakeem. The Hakeem will not do anything that's in vain. Everything has a purpose when you are Hakeem and the All Wise, not just the normal wise person, but the All Wise. So, he says there is something that we are all supposed to, that there is an ultimate goal that is to be achieved that God had in mind when He created.

Ahqahf, verse three says: "ma khalaqna as-samawati wa al-ardh wa ma bayanahuma illa bil Haqq" (46:3). We created everything, but We didn't create it in vain, We created it with Haqq, out of Haqq. There's a purpose, there's something that's going to come out of it that's real. Well, what is that reality? What is that thing that's going to come out of it? He cites Imam Ali saying, fa inna al-ghaya al-qiyama, in Khutba 190 of Nahjul Balagha, Imam, he specifies what that ultimate goal is, Al-Ghaya, which means destination. Fa inna al-ghaya al-qiyama. The hereafter is the ultimate goal. That's what's supposed to come out of it, good akhira is supposed to come out of it.

So right here, what we can conclude though and deduce is that ghaya and destination, something having purpose, necessitates a hereafter. So one of the arguments in the future, maybe that we might have for there having to be a hereafter is the fact that God is All Wise. When he does something, there's a purpose, so there must be a purpose to creation. And if that purpose is going to be achieved, it will be only achieved in another realm, another world, something where everything is going to be compensated for. Because right now we're seeing there are people that are so good, but they have the hardest lives.

If there's a God watching, then what happened, where's the purpose that he was trying to secure? And there are evil people out there who have the best lives in the world. Yeah, a person, a dictator who has taken the lives of thousands, if not millions. You can't execute them more than once if you want to, you know, make them subject to capital punishment. Yeah. So when is that going to happen? Yeah. That happens in another and it's somewhere else. That somewhere else - yawm al-qiyama. All right, once again, as I said before, we're being very concise here or else. These are all things that have to be talked about later, and I think he will get into those later, when he gets to the Ma'ad section.

Article number 13, it begins the new chapter now. The Insan, the human being, from the perspective of Islam and from an Islamic perspective. Right here and from the get go, he talks about one of the most important things that, of course, today lots of people will question. Atheism will question and others will question as well, and that is that when we say human being, the human being is a creature, is a thing that is a combination of a body and a ruh, he says here, a soul. Now, this whole thing about what's the difference between spirit and soul and nafs and ruh, there's something else, doesn't, doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about now, I don't want to get into that at all. Personally, I don't think too much comes out of that anyway, practically for us as Muslims, as people who have to live lives of righteousness to know what exactly the difference between these two is. At the end of the day, we're made up of two things he says, a body and a ruh a soul.

Now, this body, is that the real me or is it the soul? He says the body dies and disintegrates so that that must not be the real me. The other part, the ruh which is left, and he's going to give us two verses as well for that. The ruh that is left, that is the real me. Have you noticed brothers and sisters.. Let me say this right now, actually. Have you noticed that a person before they die, everyone's around them, this person is on their deathbed, everyone's around the loved ones, relatives are all around this person right? When this person dies and it's time to bury the body, all of a sudden, all those loved ones, all those close relatives, everyone who was around this person wants to leave. Would you want to spend the night with that same dead body? You want to spend the night tonight? What about tomorrow night? The day after tomorrow?

At best, two days, one day, two days later, everyone wants to leave. It becomes a carcass. Imam Ali in Nahjul Balagha, he talks about this. That this person who was alive and everyone loved, all of a sudden becomes a carcass after they die. No one wants to be around that person. Well, what's the difference then? Isn't this the real me? No, it's not the real you, it's not the real me. That body is going to disintegrate, so it's not the real me. If it was the real person, even after death, everyone would want to still be with that person, right? Shows that there's something else, there's something else involved, that's the ruh. The ruh is the real individual, the ruh is the real me and you.

Anyway, once again, this is something that might take sessions upon sessions to talk about and, you know, to prove to a person that doesn't believe in the faith. The Muslimeen out there, who do believe in the faith, who do believe in the Qur'an. And we're talking to them mostly right now in our session here. We can go to the Qur'an and see what the Qur'an says. The Qur'an says, when it's talking about the stages of the foetus and the development of the foetus in the womb of the mother. It reaches a point where now after this blood clot and this flesh and all that stuff wants to now have the soul blown into it. And Allah says that I blow the soul or He says He blows the soul into it.

Verses of the Qur'an refer to this stage as Surah Mu'minun 14 refers to. It says: "thumma unsha'nahu khalqan akhar" (23:14). After this foetus put behind all of those developmental stages and is ready to receive the ruh and receives the ruh. Look at the wording the Qur'an uses. It says thumma unsha'nahu, that means we make him into another khaliq, another creation. This fetus that was slowly developing, once the soul is blown into it, it's seen as another creature now, another creation. Unsha'nahu khalqan akhara. Akhar means other, khalqan means creation, it's another creation now. It is such a significant difference to have a soul and to not have a soul that God refers to this same body, this same foetus as another creature or another creation.

Why? Because of and due to the soul and it having the soul in it. So this soul is so valuable that it brings about this, it brings about this capacity for this foetus to be seen as another creation now. But nothing changes about the body, nothing changes, it doesn't grow a third arm or anything. It didn't, I don't know, grow two heads are like, all of a sudden double in size or anything, no. When the ruh has blown into it, it's the same size it was. What so what? It shows that that is the real valuable thing, not this physical body. Nothing changed. If physical body was what gives value, then something must have had to change in the physical, in the physicality of this fetus. Nothing changed, but it has so much value that it's another creation now. Shows that what is the real me and you? The real me and you is the soul that was blown into it.

That's one verse. The Qur'an refers to it as another creation, and then he cites another verse. That's where we we're coming into this world to show that something was going on, something was added that wasn't there before. And then, also, also it says. He brings another verse, Surah al- Mu'minun verse 100, so it's the same surah as the previous verse, just 86 verses later, "wa min wara'him barzakhun ila yawmi yuba'thun" (23:100). Also, the same way when we were coming into this life, Allah gave the ruh and the soul, once were going to another life, something is also happening and that's our ruh is being transferred. Wa min wara'him barzakhun ila yawmi yiba'thun. That before them is a barazakh now. When we die, it's all over now, you know, the physical body disintegrates, it's all nothingness. No. Before of them is a barzakh, what for the physical body?

No, no, the physical body is disintegrating. Then it must be something else about us that we have the barzakh before us, which is another life, really. And of course, this course that we're teaching right now, doing the rounds with, covers that in detail about what this barzakh is all about. InshaAllah we're trying to get it into as many cities as we can before we can, quote unquote, retire it for for a while, you know, OK, that is article number 13.

Article number 14. I just want to see if I should do this one or end here. Let me see if we'll finish in the next few minutes. Yeah, I think I think I'll leave it here. And I think we should end now InshaAllah. OK, Brother Shuja asks What is the soul? What do you mean by what is the soul? The soul is what gives life to this body. Do you mean what is the soul versus the spirit? Or just like in general, what is the soul? So I don't know what exactly you mean by your by your question. Brother Ali says do article 14. All right, just for you, Ali.

Article number 14 talks about the way we've been created, the way the human being is created. So Article 13 spoke about us and what we're made of, now it's talking about how are we the way we are? We were created with body and soul. OK, good. This soul that we have, how is it now? Tell us a little bit about the nature of it. He says that we are all born with a one, pure and two tawhidi fitrah. What does that even mean? Fitrah in Arabic means the way something is created. We are created in a certain way. It's not that just God just created us, OK? No. And then He just let us go. He created us in a certain way. In other words, we're on certain tracks once again, just like the tree, the tree that was was at least small at first, but then grew into a tree. Mankind is also, when it's born. The human being when it's born, according to the Qur'an, according to our hadiths, they are created in a certain way.

Now, something might get in the way of this individual exercising that which they were born with. That's another story. The same way the tree that's growing might all of a sudden die and dry out because there's no rain coming. That's another story. But if everything was going right, this tree would actually reach its full potential. We are also enjoying something like that as well. Now, this is something that is not takwini anymore, it's tashri'i. I mean, excuse me, it is takwini, that means it is our existence, but whether we help it or not is something that is our choice. What am I talking about? What is he talking about? The way we've been created. One, we are pure, born, pure and of course, with that, he is just undermining the whole notion of original sin that we find in the Catholic school or in the Christian faith.

No, we are not born sinful, we are born pure. As a matter of fact, it's interesting to know that in classical theology, Christian Theology, if you go look into it, there are theological fathers of the Christian faith that have explained that if a child is born and is not baptized and dies, it will go to hell. Why? Because you're born with the original sin and we are tainted with original sin when we were born.

Ayatullah Subhani here, he says, no, we don't believe in such a thing. Everyone is born pure, everyone is born with a clean slate, no original sin. The Qur'an clearly states that no one shall carry the burden of any other one. No soul shall carry the burden of any other soul. If others have sinned, if others have made mistakes I'm not going to carry the burden of punishment on the Day of Judgment. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes my mom, I don't know, will smoke when I'm a baby in her, in her belly, and then I'm born with defects. I'm carrying the burden of the mistake my mom made, for example. But that has nothing to do with the Akhira. The Qur'an says, and this concept of original sin has to do with akhira brothers and sisters. The Qur'an says, look, no one is going to carry the ukhrah, the burden of any other individual. So that's one.

Number two, he says the fitrah is also. The way were created is that we are created with an inclination towards a God and All Powerful Being, an All Powerful, All Wise, All Knowing, Being which is God. We're born with that. But yes, a lot of things throughout our lives will come in the way and, you know, stop us from continuing that path that God has put us on. Whether it's friends, whether it's parents, whether it's environment, whether it's our own mistakes, all of these things will affect that inclination, that divine inclination we have within us, that God put in us, and we will diverge from the path that we're supposed to be on.

Now, that's one. That's the way the Islam looks at it. And atheists will hear that and kind of like maybe smirk or laugh at it and say, no, no, no, no, that's not fitrah, that's not something God gave you, the inclination towards God. The inclination towards God comes from the fact that there are some phenomena out there that we just cannot understand. In the past, for example, the people couldn't understand, primitive individuals couldn't understand what lightning and thunder are and what causes them.

So they believed in a God, in God. God was the explanation for everything that we didn't have an explanation for. But now science has developed and progressed and we were able to figure a lot of things out. So there's no need for God anymore. Well, that's the wrong notion of God, though, to think that God is only the explanation for things. No, no, no. God is the explanation for creation itself. Who cares about how things are and what, why this happened or why that happened.

Just creation and existence itself cannot be unless you have something at the top who started creation. Where did everything come from? Yes. So anyway, that is the fitrah it's referred to, the inclination that's within us, whether we like it or not. When we're born, if we grow up in the right environment, it's not like we're turned off by the concept of God. No, we actually embrace it and we find nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, we feel like there is a connection between us and it.

But yes, slowly, as different things influence us, slowly as we might even make the wrong decisions in life, we are negatively influenced, negatively affected, and as a result of that, our belief in God slowly deteriorates. And before you know it, we lose it. Sins even have an effect on our beliefs. The Qur'an says, "thumma kana 'akeebat alladheena asa'u as-su'a an kadhdhabu bi ayati AIlah" (30:10). That in the end the fate of the ones who are doing wrong deeds, they believe in God, apparently, but they just had the wrong actions. Eventually led to them turning against God Himself. So, yes, these things have an effect. Now, I don't want to scare everyone just because I sin once or twice in my life or something doesn't mean that, OK, there's no way out, and I'm going to eventually deny God no. But sometimes, it will reach such a point. Yeah. OK, so let's end it here.

So Alhamdulillah we made it to article 14. If you notice, we're making progress. We're going fast. Some classes will call for, you know, a deeper instruction and you know, spending lots of time on little, on minimum content. Sometimes, as I said, that's what I'm after in these sessions. It's to cover as much area as we can without getting too much into explanation, too much into reasoning, just so we can make it, hopefully, if you guys spread the word, if we can make it to the end of this book and just go through all of the tenets of our faith, all of these doctrines of the Shia Imamiyyah faith and see like what our 'ulema have taught us based on the Qur'an and hadith. I like how he keeps citing verses of the Qur'an for things that he says.

This fitrah one also, Surah Rum verse 30, "fa akim wajhak li id-dini hanifan" (30:30), so turn to God without, you know, diverging to the left or right." Hanifan, fitrat AllahI allati fatara an-nas" (30:30), this is the way God has created you, the verse says. This fitrah, this word fitrah has come in this verse. So if you want, you can look that up. And he also cites a hadith by the Holy Prophet that: 'ma min maludin illa yuladun 'ala fitrah', there is not a newborn except that it is born with fitrah. This fitrah, this divine spark, let's call it, this divine flame that He's put within us, unless we turn it off ourselves.

We ask Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala to give us that tawfiq, to turn that spark into a fire that InshaAllah burns all of our sins away, and gets us to where we need to get to, InshaAllah. I thank you all for tuning in once again. As I said, please spread the word, share the message, and InshaAllah till next week. Wa as-salamu alaykum, wa Rahmat Ullah.