Back to the Holy Qur'an

by Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi al-Modarresi
On the day when the wrongdoer gnaws his hands, he will say: Ah, would that I had chosen a way together with the messenger (of Allah)!
Alas for me! Ah, would that I had never taken such a one for friend.
He verily led me astray from the Reminder after it had reached me; Satan was ever man's deserter in the hour of need.
And the messenger said: O my Lord! Behold, my people have taken this Quran as a thing to be shunned.
Even so We have appointed to every prophet an enemy among the sinners; but your Lord suffices as a guide and as a helper.
The unbelievers said: Why has the Quran not been sent sown on him all at once? Even so, that We may strengthen your heart thereat, and We have chanted it very distinctly.
And they bring not to you any similitude but We bring you the truth, and better in exposition. [The Criterion]
In the era of globalization when the distances are reduced, the barriers are fall down, and the world becoes a small village. In the era of scientific progress, diving deep in the oceans, going to other planets, and even the stars, in the daybreak of atom, and embryo engineering… . Do we anymore need the Quran, and the instruction of revelation? Why? Where does the Quran stand in this age? And is it that, if we stick to the Quran, the train of development and progress will leave us behind, and we would become out-dated?
These temptations and doubts posed here and there, all depend on this or that man's viewpoint.
But what is man?
Is man passions or fears, or is he much farther than these?
If man is a bulk of passions such as: love for money, women, silver and golden vaults, or bargained horses and cattle? If man is a collection of risks, having fears for himself and his family, or money. If man is just this or that. What makes us hold to revelation?
No!
Man is much farther and further than this or that. Man is values before being a body, benefits and risks. Man is aspirations before being rash passions and lusts.
If man were rash passions, he would be lead from the first day by those owning the prime passions and lusts, by those owning the prime riches. If man were just risks and fears, and warnings, he would be enslaved by those having the primary power, might and domination.
But man's history avoids such a one sided outlook.
Man is he who challenges power, and the domination of riches. Pharaoh's wife challenged all materialistic absolutes, under one man's foot, claiming divinity, saying: I am your great god, underneath whom rivers flowed, and that in whose grasps were the treasures of ancient Egypt, Egypt of that time comprised all human civilization. Power, domination, terrorism, suppression, and all means of violence and power at his disposal. This was his wife, supposed to be attracted to her husband, who challenged all that.
For, man is not money, power, lusts, or fear. He is values before any thing else.
It is true that gravity holds man on the ground, and to these lusts. But, that spirit and soul is that, for which, Allah made His angles kneel to our great father, Adam. He said, And when I made him and breathed into it from My Soul, then they knelt down to him. That breath and glimpse, and those values are what made the civilization what it is. Otherwise, man would rule this world by the terror of his sword, then call men his slaves, enslaved and dominated with all their energies at his service, in the manner taken up by all the tyrants before him.
What did resist against the tyrants? It was man's soul and spirit that did so.
Today, the world is crammed with riches. Power is centralized in it. This world began with very few people in few countries, desiring to control and dominate every thing therein toward their benefits, lusts, thoughts…. Today man is in great need for values and spirituality.
We can liken the world to a suicidal man who has fastened a belt of explosives. This belt exploding and finishing the world with it.
Today, there are atomic bombs far more than what is needed to destroy the world for several times. There is 15000 kgs of TNT or any similar explosive for every single man, whereas only 15 grams is enough to kill one man. So, how about the 15000 kgs of this matter or its equivalent among other explosives.
Today is the age of the Inter Net, the era of globalization, an age where the owners of money and power possess the media, the transcontinental missiles and the largest of destructive ships. In this era we need that man who is powered by Allah, dependent on Him, grasping at His rope. That man who says no and a thousand no to unbelief, polytheism, deviation, slavery, and terrorism.
If man and the world had a single orientation, then the Ummayds would still be in power and ruling. But, what overthrew those men who used to tighten their rule by spending the powers and facilities of Islam to their benefit and lusts….
To the extent that the man who was called the ruler of the faithful [Yazid] used to pet leopards and monkeys, reciting this line:
The Hashims played with the [Islamic] lands
But, still neither any news came nor any revelation was sent down!!
When darkness used to cover the whole Islamic nation on every side, and when all power was in the hands of this tyrant, when the scholars were silent in their fear, the merchants in their greed, men in their ignorance, then it was Imam Hussain who relying on Allah along with men and even children, in our logic, did challenge him. But, how did they carry out this challenge? They did so neither by money, nor force, but by spirits, faith, and the Quran.
Today, we find a group of youngsters, lions, but even children who come out of schools heading toward their challenge and war against Israel.
The case and problem here is not that Israel is weak, or that the world powers are not on its side, the international conspiracies are not approving it, the summits are not carrying their role, the world media are not on its side, all denying the Muslims their right in the Qods. No, it is no such thing.
It is all because that man who has been spiritually fed by the spirit of the Quran, and hangs to values, is carrying his role, and rushes toward death as if he were going to a wedding.
Yesterday, you saw the youth in South Lebanon draw glories.
But, how?! By force?! By facilities?! By world media?! No. The whole world, in everywhere, should know that beyond all material, atomic weapons, and atomic bombs, and beyond all that, there is the soul and spirit, and the ultimate ruler is Allah. The guardianship belongs to Allah the All-Right, and all the wrongdoers will lose where ever they be.
The oppressed's prayer is what will triumph over all those fleets. It is what Imam Ali introduces as: It is the distance between the earth and the heavens.
That is to say that there is no veil between man and his prayers to Allah, when he is oppressed.
So, today, in the age of materialism, facilities, atom, and globalization, man is trying to crash with the wheels of modern technology, and melt with the facilities of widespread media. Here, we need that spirit that will keep and preserve humanity and would not melt down by this media, to keep man independent and religious.
Yesterday, men used to bribe some men to fake and forge sayings to their benefit, spreading them all over the Islamic world through the podiums. But, today, the means has changed. There is the Inter Net, all vicious world media, the deceitful ways of advertisement, and tempting means. Today man needs the Holy Quran, the guidance of the prophet and his progeny.
The Quran Challenges
Today, the world is awaiting that hope, that savior, that light, that invisible, who must eventually come. That attending absent Imam, the proof Imam, the son of Al-Hassan, Al-Mahdi. The Holy prophet, our lord and beloved, Mohammad, had shown his flag holder, the one victorious by the Quran in the world. Here, we stand shouldering responsibilities, which we should meet along with the instructions of the Quran, tradition, sayings to which we should dedicate ourselves, and to whatever could attach us to revelation.
But, how is this possible?
The following recommendations are hoped to be among some of the programs that could help us, today, to return to the Holy Quran.
First, our holy prophet had said in one of his well known sayings: Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, to the effect that man acquires knowledge ever since he is in the cradle, how does this come?
Modern researches have proved the children to acquire knowledge in their mothers' wombs. Here, I direct my words to those women reading my words: If you felt to be pregnant, you should know that your responsibility has begun with you and it is growing. Your responsibility has become great toward revelation and its programs.
Any pregnant woman if busy gossiping, back biting, talking idly, cursing, listening to unlawful music, watching porno movies, angry, attacking this or that, should know that this poor baby will be delivered carrying the effects of her anger, manners, curses, and listening to unlawful music.
This baby will become the victim of all that. But, if that pregnant lady did listen to the Quran, sayings, the visit scripts of the progeny, the Ashoora visit, read these visits, she should know that her child will be born with a love for the prophetic progeny, and that this divine loyalty would accompany him, pearl, light, and hope. So, a pregnant woman's responsibility is very great.
So is the man, when his wife gets pregnant. He should change his life anew. His manner of speech with the mother, his conduct, the general atmosphere of the house should all change and become divine and Quranic.
After the child is born, up to the age of three, he keeps on acquiring. Some studies say that 80 percent of the intellectual bases of the child are complete before the age of eight and that his methods and views upon life complete in this period. So, these first three years of weaning and what comes after them are very crucial in a child's life.
So, let us have during these years, association, meetings, dialogue, and exchange with the noble progeny.
Second, since the age of three, the child can memorize the Quran the same way he memorizes songs, and as such he can acquire revelation as he receives the instructions of the cartoons he watches. He can understand life.
At this time his understanding of life is deeper and wider. At these days we deliver and submit this child to those films the roots of which we know not at all. Who had produced them, and why? What thoughts are behind them? And what crime is this we commit against our children?!
I am inviting to the establishment of schools, which would teach the Quran from the age of 3 to 6. We see that there had been institutes, which could train children to memorize the Quran. I saw a five-year old child who had memorized the Quran with its subjects, answering any related question and subject. Is it not a miracle? I asked his father some questions, and he told me that he started making him memorize the Quran three years before that, besides some speeches from the Nahj Al-Balagha. You, too, have the chance to have a child who would become a genius and memorize the Quran.
Why do you damage this child's future?! For, men wish they could return to that age their parents could make them memorize the Quran. Such a thing at those early years is a great chance and possibility.
Let us all work toward establishing such institutes, probably called Quran Institutes or Quran Kindergarten. Whatever their names be. Let us encourage such a culture in the nation, in addition to the Quran of beliefs, the prophet and his progeny's stories. Producing them in a nice form.
At the old days there was no TV set at homes, and even if there was one these programs were not existent. The Inter Net was not there. Now, you, as individuals, are faced with the obligation to be committed to your religion.
Let alone this child reared with all sorts of TV programs, movies, songs, …, suffering and facing all sorts of beasts snatching at him. Allah knows what different temptation and lie Satan should bring us in future.
Let us bring up men capable of resistance. Those who are men, while they are still children.
Imam Javad's birthday coincided with the world day for children, and I was delivering a speech to a group of scholars in Dahran. While striking an example I told them that, when the prophet was sent on his mission, Arabs used to disgrace and humiliate women, how could the holy prophet destroy all that corrupt ignorant structure?
Why did Allah create A-Zahra's light and make her at the center of creation, though she was just a woman?
O, Ahmad, if it was not for you I would not have created the galaxies, and if it was not for Ali I would not have created you, and if it was not for Fatemah I would not have created you, two.
I say: Perhaps the example for that is that Allah wanted to lift children in their value, and tell us that we should not undermine children, thus, understanding that they are not instruments, but human beings.
Perhaps that is why he sent Jesus Christ the infant, sent Jonah the prophet in the cradle, appointed Imam Javad as an Imam apparently very young, Imam Hadi, imam Mahdi, too, so that we know that quality and follow them.
Third, in the same manner men came in this age defending certain thoughts, and planted them in the schools and educational systems of our countries.
Let us work together to convince the educational authorities and systems in our countries and different other countries to make the Quran and the noble tradition the center of their studies. That is, the child should not leave guidance school before he had memorized a collection of the Quran's parts and chapters, along with a set of noble sayings, and those sayings narrated from the progeny. Why not?
Are these texts we try to enter into our children's minds better than those noble sayings? Of course, they are not?
This is a recommendation to work by. Allah had said, Eradicates Allah usury and increases the alms.
Those who work in the way of Allah, and give of their actions, possessions, or environment in the form of alms, Allah should increase and grow these alms, all by His power and might.
Fourth, the religious seminaries and schools. They have a bit become detached from the central position of the Quran.
Today, we find some seminaries that care for philosophy, philology, and the words of Aristotle, Plato, Ibn Al-Arabi… more than they do for the Holy Quran, Nahj Al-Balagha, A-Sahifa A-Sajadieh, or similar text which give vitality to man's life.
We had better reform and reshape the seminaries so that they be based on the bases of the Quran, sayings, and religious texts.
Let Us Surpass Some of the Obstacles
The world of today is that of speed, where there is no chance for one to enter the seminary for 15 years, and come out of it while he is 45. This is a long discussion I am not willing to pursue right now.
But I do say that the centrality of the Quran is in the seminary, jurisprudence is in the Quran, the principles, history, philosophy, and all exist in and belong to the Quran, for, it clarifies every thing.
What should I do tomorrow when the prophet complains to Allah? What should I, as a little subject in that air, do, when he says: O, God my people have taken this Quran as a thing to be shunned. And, what shunning is greater than that I be not able to know the Quranic verses, interpret them, depend on them, or report and quote them perfectly.
Here my recommendation to the great among the scholars (May Allah preserve them and fix their footsteps.) is that that they give their instructions to the Islamic nation and the seminaries to turn back to the Quran, and they themselves write interpretations on the Book.
Interpreting the Quran is no less than jurisprudence. Despite the importance of jurisprudence, we need great scholars who would write interpretations, and invite people to read them.
Fifth, issues related to the callers to Allah, the propagators, and lecturers.
What if we opened the Quran in front of us and read and interpreted its verses.
Some lecturers speak on some of the ignorant stories that had taken place before Islam much more than the Quran, or Nahj Al-Balagha. This is very great! The podium belongs to the prophet, and the one sitting at it is only authorized to talk by his name and nothing but what he and his pure progeny had said. This is a responsibility. For, I would speaking by the prophets' name, and not mine. I must know that I should prepare myself for that Day of Reckoning and Judgement when no money or children shall be of any benefit but that healthy heart one brings in.
Dear brothers, our Pure and Exalted God says, On the day when the oppressor gnaws his hands. Who is that oppressor?
We are not speaking here of any nonbelievers. The oppressor is he who shuns the Quran .Ah, would that I had chosen a way together with the messenger. And, what way and path but that of the Quran is the prophet's way. The Quran which is his method and guidance. Alas for me! Ah, would that I had never taken such a one for a friend. That one is those who lead people astray from the path of the prophet and his progeny.
He verily lead me astray from the Reminder. The Reminder, here, is the prophet and his progeny who are the speaking Quran, and the Quran is that silent Reminder, and the messenger of Allah is the mediator, but this is a long story not fitting into this speech.
Satan was ever man's deserter in the hour of need. It is all those non-Quranic thoughts and cultures which tread but the progeny's path, and in fact do not benefit, support, and help man in resisting worldly lusts and the risks of the hereafter. The day on which man stands before Allah. The witness, judge, and critic, there, is Allah, and Allah's messenger is the claimant and complainant. We ask Allah to make us successful to be among those who would, on that day, walk bright faced with the prophet.
They took this Quran as a thing to be shunned. That means that the messenger has an enemy for which we should all search!?
… But your Lord suffices as a guide and as a helper. The believers said: why has the Quran not been sent down on him all at once? Even so, that We may strengthen your heart thereat. That is, reciting the Quran is not just the tongue being moved in the mouth.
One should not read it incoherently without pondering it, and asking its help for his needs and causes. For, it is: Even so that We may strengthen your heart thereat, and we have chanted it very distinctly. And they bring not to you any similitude but We bring you the truth, and better in exposition.
There is no one all across the world who could bring some culture to which there will be no better counterpart and match, in the Quran, in interpretation, exposition, and visions. Therefore, we are not permitted to say that this or that economic, or educational issues has not a relevant treatment in the Quran, and hold up to other thoughts.
We ask Him the Glorious and Exalted to make us and you among those guided by the guidance of the Quran, lightened by its light and of those pursuing its path. We ask Him to make our end good and to make us follow the messenger's path, along with his infallible progeny's way, up to that day on which, the awaited proof should reappear. May Allah make us among his supporters and aids. He is the All-Hearing, All-Responder.
And Allah's Salutes, Mercy, and Blessings Be to You.