What do you say about one who is given the means of progress and does not take them up? How do you regard one who is offered the tool of success and pays it no attention? And with what description can you describe one who is given a key to get out of trials and problems, and leaves it behind his back? .
Without the slightest doubt, you will answer, I will answer, and all rational people will answer that this person exits the circle of the rational and enters the category of the insane. Here I recall what the late Imam al-Shirazi (q) spoke of in one of his books, pointing out that those whom we call insane are in reality people afflicted with a trial who, for the most part, harm only themselves; as for the truly insane, they are those who reckon that they are rational when they are not, for they harm themselves and harm others, because they have not taken up the means of progress and victory, and so they become one of the tools of destruction and backwardness.
The call of reason—which Allah the Exalted created from light—reveals to us with a clarity that admits no ambiguity that we ought to take up the means of progress and the tools of success, and the keys to the problems around us, so as to overcome and prevail over them; and this can only be through the guidance of the Noble Qurʾan, the speech of the Lord, Almighty, to His creation throughout the ages and in all places: “Indeed this Quran guides to what is most upright, and gives the good news to the faithful who do righteous deeds that there is a great reward for them” (Qurʾan 17:9). And it “guides to rectitude” (Qurʾan 72:2) through its insights, with which it gives people sight so that they may walk by them among people and in life.
The great Messenger of humanity (s) and his Ahl al-Bayt (a) after him explicitly called on us to hold fast to the Qurʾan and take refuge in it, so that it may bring us out of the darknesses of ignorance and trials into the light of knowledge and the ease of the good life—as is narrated from Imam al-Sadiq (a), from the Messenger (s): (When trials become confusing to you like patches of the dark night, then hold to the Qurʾan, for it is an intercessor whose intercession is accepted and an accuser who is believed. Whoever puts it in front of him, it leads him to Paradise, and whoever puts it behind him, it drives him to the Fire. It is the guide that points to the best way. It is a Book in which there is detailed exposition, clarification and attainment. It is decisive, not frivolous. It has an outer and an inner aspect: its outer is a ruling and its inner is knowledge; its outer is elegant and its inner is deep. It has stars, and upon its stars are stars. Its wonders cannot be counted and its marvels never wear out. In it are the lamps of guidance and the beacon of wisdom, and a guide to knowledge for one who knows the description. So let the beholder let his sight roam, and let his gaze reach the description; he will be saved from ruin and freed from entanglement. For reflection is the life of the heart of the one who sees, just as one who seeks light walks in the darkness by the light). So what excuse can we offer after such explicit clarification and such explicit invitation?
All our days are days of the Noble Qurʾan, and its springtime is the blessed month of Ramadan, in which the reality and greatness of the Qurʾan become manifest through the great reward of the one who recites it, the great reward of the one who learns it, the greatness of reflecting on its verses, and the greatness of the one who carries it truly, so as to be illuminated by it in life; and in its days and nights the human heart becomes the best vessel for its insights. But the outcast Satan still whispers to the human being so that he abandons the Qurʾan, in order to gain mastery over him afterward; for Satan always strives to strip the believer of his weapon, so that he remains weak as Allah began his creation, and so Satan can lead him astray and dominate him. He pledged, saying to Allah, Almighty: “I will surely lie in wait for them on Your straight path” (Qurʾan 7:16).
As for the hollow justifications through which the outcast Satan enters to prevent the light of the Qurʾan from reaching the human heart, so as to blow apart the relationship between the human being and the Qurʾan, among them are:
1/ Insufficient time: Some excuse themselves on the grounds that they do not have enough time to connect with the Noble Qurʾan. This justification has no basis in reality, because we find that whoever feels the importance of something allocates time to it and is keen to attend to it. Moreover, the times a person wastes are not few: he may find a long time for himself to sit with his peers, or to watch television programs, or the like. So how can he not find time for himself with the Qurʾan, when it is of such importance, which serves his own interest!
2/ Contenting oneself with recitation: A person may think that recitation—given its great reward and the Ahl al-Bayt’s (a) urging of it—is sufficient for connecting with the Noble Qurʾan. But this view is incomplete and needs completing, for recitation is a preliminary for the meanings of the Qurʾan and its light to reach the heart and mind, through reflecting on its verses and pondering its contents. That is why the supplication for beginning the recitation of the Qurʾan, narrated from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), says: (O Allah, make my looking into it worship, my reading of it reflection, and my reflection on it the taking of lessons; make me among those who take admonition from the exposition of Your admonitions in it and who avoid acts of disobedience to You; do not set a seal upon my hearing when I read, nor place a covering over my sight; do not make my reading a reading without reflection, but make me reflect on its verses and its rulings, holding fast to the laws of Your religion; and do not make my looking into it heedlessness, nor my reading idle chatter. Indeed You are the Most Kind, the Most Merciful).
Imam ʿAli (a) said: (Reflect on the verses of the Qurʾan and take lessons from it, for it is the most eloquent of lessons).
3/ Inability to understand the Qurʾan: This justification comes in several forms, all of which lead to the same end, namely defeating the purpose of the Qurʾan and veiling its light from reaching the hearts. For Allah the Exalted sent down His Book to all people, and He could not send it down to them and require of them faith, guidance and admonition by it without the Book itself being a window overlooking guidance, and without the human being having the receptivity and the ability to understand and to reach guidance through it. The Qurʾan is a witness in the hands of the Messenger (s), so that he may warn the people by it: “Say, ‘What thing is greatest as witness?’ Say, ‘Allah! [He is] witness between me and you, and this Quran has been revealed to me that I may warn thereby you and whomever it may reach.’ ‘Do you indeed bear witness that there are other gods besides Allah?’ Say, ‘I do not bear witness [to any such thing].’ Say, ‘Indeed He is the One God, and I indeed disown what you associate [with Him].’” (Qurʾan 6:19). And He, Almighty, said: “[This is] a blessed Book that We have sent down to you, so that they may contemplate its signs, and that those who possess intellect may take admonition” (Qurʾan 38:29).
Yes, the depths of the Qurʾan are profound, and it has inner dimensions and horizons that perhaps only the scholars understand, and that none understand in their entirety except the Prophet (s) and his Ahl al-Bayt (a). But on the other hand it has levels: some of it is understood by the general public who know Arabic—by virtue of the innate nature upon which Allah created them and the intellect with which Allah honored them, they can draw from it—and some of it is understood by the scholars and the friends of Allah, as is narrated from the Commander of the Faithful (a): (Then Allah—majestic is His remembrance... divided His speech into three parts: He made one part of it known to both the learned and the ignorant; one part known only to one whose mind is pure, whose perception is subtle and whose discernment is sound, among those whose breasts Allah has opened to Islam; and one part known only to Allah and His trustees, those firmly grounded in knowledge...).
Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) said, in a statement that admits no ambiguity: (The Book of Allah, Almighty, is upon four things: the expression, the allusion, the subtleties and the realities. The expression is for the common people, the allusion is for the elite, the subtleties are for the friends of Allah, and the realities are for the prophets).
As for when a person stops at the ambiguous verses, which he does not grasp and whose content his knowledge does not reach, he must turn to those who know the Book, the ones learned in it, and draw from them what he lacks—whether through written or spoken exegeses or by learning from a teacher. For (the believer ought not to die until he has learned the Qurʾan or is in the course of learning it), as Imam al-Sadiq (a) said.
4/ Intruding upon the Qurʾan: Among the subtle beguilements of Satan, of which one must beware, is that some claim that we do not need a guide and expounder to understand the Noble Qurʾan, and, more specifically, they claim that they are not in need of the Prophet (s) and his Ahl al-Bayt (a) for their reading and understanding to be a sound understanding. Yes, we mentioned in a previous point that in the Qurʾan there is what is understood by the general public through language and reason; but the Qurʾan is deep, and for further knowledge and to reach its deep horizons, one must hold fast to the Ahl al-Bayt (a) through the method they have explained and the guidelines they have set out for comprehending the Qurʾan and benefiting from it.
The Ahl al-Bayt (a) have expounded the Noble Qurʾan in two ways:
The first: They interpreted the Quranic verses, applied them interpretively to those about whom they were revealed and to those who were their instances, and explained the significations of the words and their horizons, through narrations of direct exegesis. However, that exegesis is not considered the only meaning of the verse, for they (a) interpreted some verses with several interpretations, and this is an instance of the inner dimensions of the verses.
The second: The Ahl al-Bayt (a) explained to us the method of correct understanding and gave us keys so that we can undertake the process of comprehending and understanding the Qurʾan: they defined for us the definitive (muḥkam) and the ambiguous (mutashābih) and how to deal with the verses, so that we refer the ambiguous verses back to the definitive ones; they explained to us that the Qurʾan was revealed in the manner of “It is you I mean, but listen, O neighbor”; and they pointed to certain Quranic principles: that parts of it confirm other parts; that upon every truth there is a reality and for every correct thing there is a light; that the beginning of Allah’s speech is about one thing and its end about another while it is connected; and the like. They also used to urge the companions to turn toward the Qurʾan, to ponder it and to reflect on its verses.
Among the forms of severance from the Noble Qurʾan is that we stray from its correct path and so lose the safeguard of the course of reason, who are the Prophet (s) and his pure Ahl al-Bayt. Therefore, those who separated the Book from the Ahl al-Bayt (a) went astray and led others astray, “courting temptation, and seeking its interpretation” (Qurʾan 3:7) contrary to what was revealed and contrary to the course it has run, and contrary to the example set for them. They acted upon those verses that were ambiguous to them, whereas they were commanded to believe in them and to refer them back to their definitive counterparts, so as to act upon the definitive of the Qurʾan. Thus have the Ahl al-Bayt (a) taught us, so that we take up the means of strength and success and overcome problems through the Noble Qurʾan—neither abandoning it with justifications of not understanding, nor venturing upon it without a sound method from the People of the Reminder.
