This is the second volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam”. The first volume can be purchased on Amazon at this link.
After quoting the hadith from Imam Ali (A): lil batyli jawla wa lil haqqi dawla – “lies have their own period, and truth has its own realm” – we have said that we are now living in a period of lil batyli jawla, “lies have their own periodˮ and that the period of the kingdom of truth cannot precede this time: it must of necessity come only after it. The Quran says, “He established darkness and light” (6: 1) – and darkness is named here before light, because truth is eternal and victorious, and falsehood is transient. And so in the order of the universe there must first be a kingdom of lies and darkness, and then a kingdom of truth and light, and not vice versa. And this very long period will be opened by the arrival of the Imam, Qaim of the House of Muhammad (S).
When will this arrival take place, what will precede it, and why has the Imam been hidden at all?
To summarize very briefly what we have discussed in detail in previous parts, in the worlds before our world, Allah created the creatures and gave them a choice. And when some of them chose good and others chose evil, He gave them the opportunity to realize their choice in their deeds. And so this earthly world (dunya) was made a place where everyone’s inwardness should be manifested outwardly, “so that Allah may distinguish the wicked from the goodˮ (8: 37).
And we have said that this is the reason for the existence of evil. Because people must be able to manifest their inner selves. If the kingdom of righteousness prevailed in the world, everyone would be forced into submission and outwardly show righteousness and goodness, but inwardly hate them. However the entrance of such into Paradise would be contrary to the wisdom of the Creator and would not correspond to the qualities of Paradise, which is pure, and the unclean will not enter it. And therefore everyone has the opportunity to manifest his inner self in external affairs, and in this world by necessity evil must be present, and the good exist side by side with the evil, and the good are born from the evil, and the evil are born from the good.
So, what can be understood from the Quran and hadith is that Allah forbade the Imam’s reappearance as long as such confusion remains. “If they had been clearly separated We verily had punished those of them who disbelieved with painful punishmentˮ (48: 25). Imam Sadiq (A) was asked, “What does ‘separated’ mean in this ayat?ˮ He said, “Allah has placed the believers as stored in the loins of the unbelievers and hypocritesˮ – in the sense that they are born of them – “and Ali (A) did not kill the fathers until those who were stored in their loins were born of them. And the same is our Qaim: he will not come until the stored of Allah come out.ˮ
A man kept asking Imam Ali (A) why he did not reclaim power by the sword when it was taken away from him after the death of the Prophet (S). He answered him nothing, and so many years passed until the time of the Siffin war came. Then he called him in his military camp and asked him, “How old are those you see here?ˮ He said, “Most of them are about twenty years old.ˮ The Commander of the believers (A) said, “If I had raised the sword then and killed their fathers, where would they come from now?ˮ
It is also narrated from Imam Sadiq (A), “Surely, this affair (the reappearance of the Imam of time) will not come to you except after despair. By Allah, it will not come to you until you are sifted. By Allah, it will not come to you until you are separated. By Allah, it will not come to you until those destined to become wretched, become wretched, and those destined to become felicitous, become felicitous.ˮ That is, it will not come until the essence and inwardness of everyone is fully manifested.
So, the arrival of the Imam of time will not take place when someone prepares it, or when everyone becomes good or, conversely, when everyone becomes bad. The arrival will take place when the separation is accomplished and everyone returns to his reality.
Our world is a world of taklif, and it is not possible to set up justice until there is a separation, for then those who should have been put to the test will not be put to the test. If the Imam comes before that, there are two possibilities: either he will be killed, as his infallible fathers (A) were killed, or he will destroy those who would oppose him. The first is excluded because he is the last Imam and the argument of Allah, and there will be no Imam after him. Therefore his killing would mean the death of this world, as the hadith says, “If the earth were left without the argument (of the Prophet or Imam) for a moment, it would devour its inhabitants.ˮ In the second case, however, the destruction of his enemies would mean the extermination of those who are stored in their loins and the non-fulfillment of the argument over them, and Allah has rejected everything except the fulfillment of His argument. And therefore the Imam should inevitably be occulted until the separation is fulfilled and the creatures are tested.
If you look broadly, the entire period of “lil batyli jawlaˮ (“lies have their own periodˮ) from Cain to Sufyani is a period of occultation. The Prophets and Imams were manifested in this period only to the extent that allowed the argument to be fulfilled over people. The Messenger of Allah (S) did not fight to impose religion on people, but to make Islam externally manifest so that such a thing as “Islamˮ would be known in the world, and the argument would be fulfilled over people. Only to this extent did he fight. Then he ordered the Commander of the believers (A) to put his sword in its scabbard so that the essence of the hypocrites would be manifested in their deeds and there would be no compulsion over them. When the time came and hypocrisy was ready to consume the Ummah and Islam, the Commander of the believers (A) took out his sword and began to fight the Nakithin, Kasitin and Mariqin at Jamal, Siffin and Nahrawan.
Then he commanded his successor Imam Hassan (A) to remain silent, and Hassan (A) made peace with Muawiya and did not fight, so that there would be no compulsion over the people, and that what was stored in the hearts and souls would find an outward manifestation in their deeds. And after the waves of darkness were ready to engulf the Ummah, his brother Hussein (A) drew the sword and the banner of his father (A), fought the army of the oppressors at Kerbela, and with his blood established over the people a perfect argument.
After him, his son Ali ibn Hussein as-Sajjad (A) kept silent, was hidden from sight and engaged in prayers and worship – so that after him Imams Baqir (A) and Sadiq (A) bare the sword of knowledge and filled the east and west of the earth with their hadiths and disciples. Then after them Imam Kazim (A) spent most of his life in the prisons of the Abbasid regime and kept silent so that what was hidden in the hearts would manifest itself – and then various sects such as the Ismailis, Waqifites, Khattabites, Nawisites and others broke away from the true path. After him, his son Imam Reza (A) accepted the throne from Mamoon and openly debated with representatives of all religions and sects, filling the Abbasid caliphate with the light of his wisdom. After Imam Reza (A), the last three Imams before al-Qaim – Jawad, Hadi, and Askari (A) – were placed under arrest and covered by a veil of oppression until the occultation of the last Imam began.
In surah “The Light”, verse 55, we read, “Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely make them khalifs on earth just as He made those who were before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me.”
Imam Sadiq (A) says regarding this ayah, “When Nuh (A) asked Allah for punishment for his people, Allah sent down Jabrail with seven grains, and he said, ‘O Prophet of Allah! Allah says, They are My viceroys and My slaves, and I will not destroy them with the lightning from the heavens until the call is ended, and the judgment upon them is complete: so renew your efforts in your call to your people! Plant these grains in the earth; when they grow, ripen and bear fruit, then there will be deliverance and an exodus for you. Make known this to those believers who have followed you!’
And so, when trees grew from these grains, and their trunks became thick, and they let down branches, and gave fruit, and dates appeared on them after a long time, Nuh (A) asked Allah to fulfill His promise. And Allah commanded him to plant new trees from the seeds of those very trees and to renew his patience and diligence, so that the argument would be fulfilled over his people. When Nuh (A) reported this to those people who believed in him, three hundred of them departed from the faith, saying, ‘If what Nuh (A) says were true, there would be no delay in Allah’s promise’.
And so, whenever the trees grew, Allah commanded Nuh (A) to grow new trees from them – and so seven times. And those believers who were with him each time left the religion group by group, until there were not more than seventy of them left.
And then Allah said to him, ‘O Nuh, now the morning has separated from the night before your eyes, and the pure truth has become clear, and the deed and the faith have been purified from the muddy mud through the withdrawal from faith of those whose clay (from which they were created) was abominable. If I had destroyed the unbelievers and left with you those who pretended to be believers but then departed from the faith, then I would not have fulfilled My promise to those believers of your people who were sincerely convinced of My monotheism and had grasped the rope of your prophecy that I would make them khalifs on earth, and establish for them their religion, and replace their fear with safety, so that they would purify their worship of Me through the exodus of doubt from their hearts.
So how could I make them khalifs, and establish them, and replace their fear, if I knew of the insecurities of those who then departed from the faith, and of the abomination of their clay, and of the evil of their thoughts, the result of which was their hypocrisy and delusion? If they had smelt the possessions which I will give to the believers after I have made them khalifs, when I have destroyed their enemies, their secret hypocrisy would have strengthened, and the ropes of delusion would have entangled their hearts still more, and they would have spoken with hostility against their brethren, and would have undertaken war with them, demanding supremacy and power, so that they might be the only ones who command and forbid. In that case how then would their promised establishment in religion and the spreading of the power among the believers be accomplished, with all these tumults and wars? Oh no! ‘So make the ark before Our eyes according to Our suggestion.’ˮ
Imam Sadiq (A) continued, “And so is the Qaim (A). Verily, the days of his occultation will be prolonged, so that the pure truth may be manifested, and the faith cleansed from the muddy mire – through the withdrawal from religion of all whose clay was vile of those Shias for whom one may fear because of their hypocrisy, which they would show when Allah makes them khalifs, and establishes them, and gives them safety during the Qaim.ˮ
And so, the course of world history goes toward separation, guided by this imperative. From mixture to separation.
It is important to understand such a thing: Allah places people in conditions under which something is manifested that would not be manifested if they were not placed in these conditions. “You will travel from stage to stageˮ (84: 19). The lie of communism would not manifest if communists did not actually rule. The unbelief of Iblis would not have manifested itself if Allah had not commanded him to worship Adam. The kufr of some of the companions of Imam Kazim (A) would not have manifested itself if he had not entrusted them with large sums of money – and then they appropriated it for themselves and refused to acknowledge the next Imam Reza (A) so that they would not give him the money. And, as we have just seen, the disbelief and filthiness of most of the followers of Nuh (A) would not have manifested itself if Allah had not delayed the fulfillment of His promise. For over the creatures a perfect argument should be fulfilled, and as the hadith says, Allah rejected everything but the fulfillment of a perfect argument over His creatures. Everyone should be brought to the limit of what he is and return to his essence, chosen by himself: “As was your beginning – so you will return” (7: 29). And, by the way, this is also the role of Iblis: he only pushes people to manifest that which would not be manifested otherwise, and he is incapable of more. Therefore Allah has given him the opportunities that he possesses. He is not the cause of kufr. He only calls for kufr, and if they did not want to, they would not respond to him.
And this is the explanation of the situation in which modern humanity finds itself. The Creator has a program. He gave people all graces so that they could find happiness in the nearer and future worlds. He gave them the Book, the leaders, the laws. He gave them all the means to happiness. And He gave them freedom. And so, taking advantage of their freedom, they rejected it all. They rejected the Book, they killed the leaders, they distorted the laws. The Creator gave them the opportunity to build whatever society they wanted. Do what you want… And all that they built failed utterly and shatteringly – so that people themselves would come to the conclusion that they needed divine leadership, i.e., the reign of the one appointed by God Himself.
This is the essence of our present situation: all possible ideologies, models, social arrangements, regimes and projects have been tried and shown to be powerless to lead humanity to happiness. People no longer believe in anything. Because everything has been tried, everything has proven ineffective. It is the time of total skepticism, the “end of history.ˮ Imam Sadiq, peace be upon him, said, “Our Qaim will not come until there is no group left in whose hands there is no power. So that when he comes, no one can say: if we rule, we would rule justly.ˮ
For example, the Romans ruled, the Persians ruled, the Greeks ruled, the English ruled, the Russians ruled, the Americans ruled. Did any of them rule fairly? And further, monarchs ruled, aristocrats ruled, bankers ruled, priests ruled, scholars ruled, liberals ruled, communists ruled, islamists ruled… All groups ruled. The rule of all these groups ended in total bankruptcy. And now, why do we think we are living in a time close to the coming of the Imam? Because we see that all the groups, peoples, and ideologies that only the descendants of Adam have – they all ruled. All of them had power, all of them had a historical chance, inspired some hope, promised something, wanted to build justice, peace and freedom, and all of them ended up in complete failure. For example, a century ago, there were, say, communists who could say, “Well, we haven’t ruled yet. We have the most advanced ideology and the only scientific doctrine, we promise that we will make mankind happy if you let us rule.ˮ Allah has given them power. Rule! And how did it end? Millions of victims, the Gulag, and finally the inglorious collapse and complete disappearance of this ideology from the historical scene.
So, humanity should reach a state where it realizes that it cannot govern itself. Allah’s program for the descendants of Adam will come to a point where the transition to the next level must take place. And it will come through the Imam. To put it another way: the usual history will come to an end. The history of the descendants of Adam, who were left to their own forces, their own games, their own power, will end. Because it will become clear: everything that the descendants of Adam did, built, thought, created AT ALL – it all turned out to be zero, ended in a total failure. And when this becomes clear – then the Imam will come with a divine rule.
So by that Allah is like saying, “You were left to yourselves, you’ve been building, thinking, struggling and planning by yourselves – and now you’ve failed. Now come and see.ˮ Allah’s reign will begin after the complete collapse of all human reigns. This is why the hadiths say that the closer to the Imam’s appearence, the worse it will be. The more there will be tyranny, debauchery, and sin. That is, it will get worse and worse and worse – and when it gets really bad, then he will come…
And so, when the Imam comes, drawing the sword Zul-fiqar from its sheath, it will be the transition of the descendants of Adam to a new stage. Whether they want to or not. When a new age of the universe comes, are people asked if they want it or not? For example, a new ice age is due tomorrow. Is someone asking you and me, do we want it or not? Therefore Imam Sadiq (A) says, “Wait for the coming of the Imam in the morning and in the evening.ˮ He does not say: prepare the coming of the Imam in the morning and evening. He says: wait in the morning and evening.
The transition to the new phase of the world must take place in total darkness. Hence the predictions in the hadith about the extreme decay of this world before the Imam’s coming. We have already said that in order to transition to the new phase one must die in the old one. In the same way, the modern world dies and dissociates, sinking into certain black waters. Only an insoluble pellet of gold remains in it.
We are present now at the erasure of the world and the old humanity. We see that in today’s world extremely reprehensible and disgusting things become accepted, that all proportions are reversed: truth seems to be false, falsehood is true, norm is perversion, perversion is the norm.
But notice that all decay is at the same time the release of the hidden golden seed. It is not the case that there is only rotting and that is all. The world is both rotting and moving toward a higher state. If you look at a grain in the ground, the process of rotting actually releases its inner seed, which will give rise to a new plant. In this respect, the Imams say: you will be separated, you will be tested, you will be sifted. This decay will release the sprout that will join the Imam and give rise to a new world. The world must come to a sunset before the sun rises in the West. For the West is the place of sunset. The world must come to sunset, and then from the place of sunset the sun of the new world will rise. This world should go down into a certain black pool and dissolve there to then come out of it in a completely new quality.
The logic of the last centuries of history has been a consistent depletion of the Sacred and, accordingly, the growth of the desacralized periphery. Why is this happening? We know that the ultimate victory belongs to the Sacral, that it is the Sacral that rules reality, of which there can be no doubt. Is there not, then, a definite design and task in the fact that the Sacred is winding down and withdrawing from the world? Can we not suppose that this is actually a purification of the Sacred, a ridding it of the connotations of the unholy, which pretends to be Sacred but is not? Take the history of Islam, for example. We know the so-called “Islamicˮ caliphate, we know the doctrines that served it: they were all cloaked in sacred meanings, being diabolical counterfeits of the sacred. That is, in history, there have been constructions like “painted coffinsˮ – resplendent on the outside, full of filth and impurity on the inside. Caliphates, empires, kingdoms, and churches were all colossal fakes, prostituting the meaning of the Sacred. The caliphate, which called itself “Islamic,ˮ killed all the true leaders of Islam one by one. If it had not called itself “Islamic,ˮ it would not have succeeded in doing so. If the Imams (A) had lived in our ungodly time, they would have been less likely to die than then.
Thus, the point of the departure of the Sacred is to cleanse it of false sacredness. A blank sheet of paper and the total blackness of Absence should remain – before sacredness explodes again with an incredible, radiant Presence – already without fakes and perversions. The awliya shaytan, the “friends of the devilˮ operate through the perversion and substitution of the Sacred, through the replacement of its inner essence while retaining its outer attributes. And in fact, the traditional world was the world of such models of the Sacred. The caliphs laughed at Islam, but performed their prayers at strictly scheduled times; the popes mocked Christ, but read their Masses with a serious face. The expression “hocus-pocusˮ came from “Hoc est corpus,ˮ “this is my bodyˮ – the words of the Christian Eucharist, the most sacred words in that religion. The difference of the modern world is that it also renounces the outer shell of the Sacred. The Sacred itself leaves the world; no one can force it to leave. That is why it is impossible to create any viable constructions of the Sacred in our world: they will be subject to annihilation.
That is why Western civilization has an eschatological significance. As we have shown in the previous parts, it is a kind of mutation, composed of all possibilities, of all historically given discourses. The essence of the West is that it has dragged all of humanity into the depths of the historical night – the night that was to come. It is a civilization of apocalypse and the end of history. It appeared to realize all of humanity’s possibilities and to nullify them, to destroy history, to bring it to a final, complete realization, which would be at the same time a complete bankruptcy – as we have said, the bankruptcy of all human possibilities.
If we read the Quran and reflect on the stories of civilizations and communities of the past given there, we realize one thing: many things in this world are done simply to show their failure. Western civilization has imposed on the human race one model after another, one utopia after another – so that it will consistently become disillusioned with all and thus come to the need for a divine Guide. This civilization, which filled history with the spirit of utopia, based on the figure of the God-man, introduced the belief that it was possible to settle down on earth by one’s own efforts. This belief had to be introduced in order to collapse at one fine moment with a terrible crash. And that is about to happen. This is how the program for the human race is being executed, and Western civilization has a part to play in this drama. And that role has almost been played.
And so, I will say this important thing: it is no accident that what has come to rule the world came out of Christianity. After all, modern civilization (the technological modernity) that rules the world, is the result of a rebirth of Christianity. It is not Christianity, for modernity has abandoned it, but it is the transformation of Christianity and conclusion from it.
There is nothing random in human history… We are now talking about the semantic connection of events. Events are related to each other not only causally, but also semantically. Every phenomenon in this world can be placed in either coordinate system. Let’s say something happened to you – for example, you broke your leg. In the causal, physical system of coordinates it happened because you forgot to wear winter shoes, you slipped, your bones could not withstand the pressure – and the result was a broken leg. But in the semantic frame of reference, this event is related to the fact that you needed some time to rest and reflect on your life. You understand that it happened for a reason, that there was a certain sense in it. Likewise, events on the level of the big history.
The mythology that gave rise to the modern world was piled around the Prophet Jesus. What brings humanity to the black waters, to the extreme point in the arc of descent, came out of the mythology built around Jesus. And Jesus, as we know, will come with Imam Mahdi (A). And won’t that happen to raise the argument over this world? And so, it is also no coincidence that the mother of the Imam of our Time, Princess Nargis, is the granddaughter of a Byzantine emperor whose lineage goes back to the Apostle Peter, the successor of Christ. These are all parts of the same divine program. All of these details are connected with each other..
We have said that Jesus is called “Messiah,ˮ i.e., “Masihˮ, from the word “mas-hˮ meaning “taking,ˮ “taking away.ˮ When Allah in the world of Zarr removed (masaha) from Adam’s loins his descendants, He brought them all back, but Jesus (A) was not returned. And that is why he is called “Masihˮ – because that “mas-hˮ was left on him, and he was not born from the loins of Adam’s male offspring. He was born without a father, so that ruhu llah, the spirit of Allah, might be manifested in him without impurity. Thus, Jesus is related to the Mahdi to be a sign and argument for him.
If we look at the name “Isaˮ (عيسى) and its Arabic spelling, we see that it consists of four letters, and the two letters in the middle are “Ya.Sin,ˮ that is, the name of Muhammad (S) in the Quran. “Ya.Sin. I swear by the wise Quran…ˮ. And so Isa (A) came to be a sign and argument for the last Prophet and his Family – the family of Ya.Sin. As the Quran says, “And [mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, ‘O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad’ˮ (61: 6).
Further, the first and last letters in the name “Isaˮ – ein and alif maksura – are the same as in the name “Aliˮ. Thus, the first and last letters in the name “Isaˮ are the first and last letters in the name “Ali,ˮ and the two middle letters are “Ya.Sin,ˮ i.e., the name of Muhammad (S). Thus, the name “Isaˮ is a compound of “Ya.Sinˮ and “Ali.ˮ
And note, exactly the same are the names of the other prophets: they are all formed from the names of Ahl ul-Bayt. As we shall yet see, the letters express certain forces of the universe. And just as the prophets are words made up of the letters of Ahl ul-Bayt, so their names are made up of the letters of the names of Ahl ul-Bayt in certain proportions and ratios.
The Quran says that Isa is like Adam because ruh (spirit) was given to him directly, without the mediation of his father. Therefore, one of his names is ruhu llah, the spirit of Allah. This spirit was directly breathed into Adam, as a ray from the Universal Intellect that animates all. For the purity of the manifestation of this ruh in Isa (A) he was born without a father: the spirit was breathed directly into him to be a sign for Muhammad and the Household of Muhammad (S).
And so the Quran says that at his birth Maryam went to the East: “She went away from her family to a place in the Eastˮ (19: 16). Why does the Quran mention this direction? Only in geographical terms? Every word and every ayat in the Quran has several meanings. The East in sacred geography is a symbol of the Intellect, the Spirit, the Ruh. The sun rises in the East, and the sun is the symbol of the First Intellect, the luminary of the universe in surah “Light.ˮ And the hadith says that geographically it was Karbala where the birth of Jesus took place.
In the same way, we see that the Black Stone is embedded in the eastern corner of the Kaaba. The Black Stone embodies the principle of the Kaaba and the entire spiritual life of man. It sealed the vow of the Wilaya, that is, it embodied the principle of the human form as the Heikel of Tawhid. It was white but became black from the sins of the human race – just as our form turns black in the mirror of our deeds. Therefore, the eastern corner of the Kaaba with the Black Stone corresponds to the Universal Intellect in the scheme of the universe, that is, the upper right pillar of the Throne of Allah.
So it is no accident that the immersion of humanity into the black pool of decay and dissociation began from the West: this corresponds to the universal symbolism reflected in the Quran. The West is the lands where the Black Myth triumphed and the Technology arose from the dualistic mythology of the deified Jesus.
We said that the fear implanted by the Black Myth that dominated European medieval consciousness caused the desire to get rid of it through the creation of an unnatural technical world. This world, called “modernity,ˮ unleashed gigantic forces and united humanity – of course, not in a natural way (this will only happen after the Imam has come), that is, not through the hearts of men, but externally, through means of transportation, transmission of information, etc. Inwardly, people today, on the contrary, are more fragmented than ever; we live in a night of multiplicity, and the modern world is simply saturated with the miasma of hatred of groups, peoples and individuals toward one another. You might say it is a world where everyone hates each other and pushes away from each other – right down to the closest relatives and members of the same family. But they are forced to exist alongside each other because of all the wires, networks, airplanes, financial settlements and the Internet that unite them.
We see that mankind used to be divided into islands – nations, states, civilizations. On each of these pieces of the mosaic, people were in their own juices and did not notice, in principle, the others. They were such frozen formations… Now, however, the chocolate bars are melted, and they merge into a whole. As a result of globalization, the world has become a big village, where people, ideas, cultures move freely. This is due to the fact that humanity has reached a stage where argument must finally assert itself over it. Hence the free transfer of information, the Internet, etc. All limitations are being overcome. The world is being washed by this tsunami, moving to a new stage.
This does not mean that “globalizationˮ is a good thing, not at all. Maybe, it is something bad. And in the future it will still bring such misery that two world wars will seem like toys. The world will be washed in blood before it moves on to a new stage, to the rule of Imam.
But we do not now speak in such terms as “good-bad.ˮ The world used to exist on one level, now it has moved to another. You can sigh and regret what you had, but you can’t change anything. And so, we see that all the conservative movements in the 20th century that tried to stand in the way of this tsunami were defeated in one way or another.
The significance of Western civilization is that it became the locomotive of this process. It happened to be entrusted with this mission at some point in history. Then the center of this movement can change, but the trend itself will continue. It’s like a river going through different stages before it flows into the ocean. It is narrow in one place, then it becomes wide, passes over rocks…. And so is humanity before it flows into the ocean of Barzakh, at the shore of which the banner of the hidden Imam awaits it.
These topics are continued in the next part.
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