Hujjatul Islam Ustad Syed Jawad Naqvi
(Principal Jamia Orwatul Wuthqa – Lahore)
Delivered at: Masjid Baitul ul Ateeq
Lahore – Pakistan
Friday Sermon – 18th August, 2023
Sermon 1 : Adl in personality develops in the laps of Adil Society
Taqwa is for the protection of individual, family, social and every segment of human life. Quran has established Adl as the foundation of Taqwa. Though Adl is not just the pillar of protection system but as per essence of region Adl is the pillar of establishment of entire universe. Similarly the center of divine system, religion, guidance is Adl. The system which Allah has ordained for human beings its foundation is also Adl.
In Surah Maida, Allah (s) has ordered believers to establish Adl.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامِينَ لِلَّهِ شُهَدَاءَ بِالْقِسْطِ ۖ وَلَا يَجْرِمَنَّكُمْ شَنَآنُ قَوْمٍ عَلَىٰ أَلَّا تَعْدِلُوا ۚ اعْدِلُوا هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ {8}
O you who believe! Be upright for Allah, bearers of witness with justice, and let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably; act equitably, that is nearer to Taqwa, and be careful of (your duty to) Allah; surely Allah is Aware of what you do
You should become witness for establishing Adl and in this do not consider enmity as an obstacle in the way of establishing Adl. Then the verse says to acquire Adl as that is nearest to Taqwa. Since Taqwa is the protection mechanism and its domain is spread to the extent of human life. Wherever you can see human life reaching the security and safety is essential to the extent.
In human life the most important field is social life. Since major part of life is social hence major part of Taqwa is also related to Social. Hence Adl is also related mostly to social life and carries utmost significance in social life. All other dimensions of human life are related, dependent and in the laps of social life.
Adl is the center of divine systems made for human beings. Adl does not mean judiciary justice mostly seen in courts but Adl has been commonly used for judiciary justice since we encounter Adl mostly in court cases. Adl is general even though court decisions are made with justice. The judge has to be Adil but then even leader should be Adil. In divine religion system the Hakim does governance as well as takes decisions, but for the facilitation of people he makes a representative in court and other departments. In democracy the governance is independent and court is separate whereby not governed by Prime Minister and President even though they appoint the Chief justice. This is the democratic distribution. In divine system man has not been given the rights to make law but only execute these laws. The order has been given to understand law. Fuqahat means to understand law but we have changed it to making laws though our responsibility is only to understand and execute laws. We should correct this misunderstanding that what is happening in courts is justice (Insaaf) but not Adl. Since we consider Urdu language as inferior and we try to cover this with English language which means that you consider yourself very lowly and based, hence you are trying to conceal that lowliness by using English language. First we should remove this inferiority related to Urdu language and in fact Urdu is much superior language as compared to English based on science of language recognition. But when a community has disgrace inside them then it spreads in other segments.
When I use the word Adalat e Ijtemai your mind should not move towards high court, supreme court and judges. Social Adl does not mean justice whereby you resolve disputes. It means to establish a society on the basis of Adl. When we form a family its basis should be on Adl. As mentioned before the first field of Adl is our own personality and when we develop our self then you have to make Adl as the foundation. Developing personality on the basis of Adl does not mean that you resolve issues on the basis of justice. It means Allah has kept potential, abilities inside man and to nurture those abilities towards perfection together in balanced for. When you make all those abilities reach perfection then you are possessor of Adl. But if you made one ability reach perfection and others remain there then there is no Adl present in your personality. Then there are negative traits, evils present inside your existence and Adl means to not allow these to nurture along with the abilities which need to be nurtured. This dimension should be kept in consideration by human being that those traits which are evil should not reach perfection but instead those which are divine and good traits should reach perfection all together. There are certain things which are skills, talents like you see building, clothes, shoes they are made with talents. And there should be Adl in these skills as well. Allah has kept the ability to learn skills as well. How many talents, skills should a person possess? Like an Alim possesses knowledge, but apart from that he should have skills to research, deliver lectures, write books, make others understand, propagate. If some Alim is not able to do these then he is without skills. This is not just for Ulama but for everyone that they should possess certain talents of life which are not professional skills like tailoring, cobbler , painter, etc. The life skills are different from professional skills. It is essential to develop these life skills in the generations being nurtured today. There is a long list of skills and here also there should be Adl where you should develop several skills.
Similarly when man develops his personality he is also developing social life. It is not that first we spend decades to develop our self and then come out to develop society. Both of these are done together. When you are developing your self at the same time you are part of society as well. Like when a child is born everyone focusses on child and this would be done by parents and people at home. If the parents are not groomed, trained and you put all pressure on training the child then this won’t happen. If you want to establish Adl in child then first parents need to possess Adl. This law is made by Allah that whatever you acquire from your training centers you will become that only.
The Social Adl is connected with self Adl. If our society is not based on Adl then our personality will also not develop Adl. Like today all Pakistani carry same temperament even though they are divided in sects, regions, lingual which are not real distribution. All the sects do not carry their identity full time. Like a Shia becomes Shia when sees something related to Shia. In full time we are all the same, whereby we are representative of our culture. Like in Punjab they swore in every sentence. This is not the teaching of religion and community. This is your culture, society which has taught you this. We are in that state which society has made for you. Can you differentiate between Shia and Sunni when you see them driving car? They are both over speeding, honking, breaking signal, parking in wrong place. Here there is no Shia Sunni, it is society that has come here. Our society teaches us that to drive as per law is inhuman. We do not consider it manhood to stop at traffic light or put on seat belt. All these have been instilled by our society inside us. These swearing which people do without considering any community. No one can differentiate our sect based on our language, life style and it is society that is most effective on us. We are children of our society and culture. If the basis of society is on Fisk and Fujoor then everyone would become Fasik and Fajir. If the foundation is based on Adl, Taqwa, Emaan then the nurturing would be on these. If the society is based on self interest then everyone in the society would be selfish. Hence the foundation which Quran has established is for society. Religion starts from society and not individual. The Adl also starts from society and if that is done then all individuals will also get develop Adl.
As Allah is asking to acquire Adl because it is nearest to Taqwa. Hence we have to look inside Adl and consider Adl in society so that we get Taqwa in our society. We will discuss to this extent only on how Taqwa comes from Adl but to completely discuss Social Adl is out of context for these sermons.
SECOND SERMON
Sermon 2: Way of living life in virtuous or corrupt societies
In saying no 114
وَ قَالَ عليه السلام: إِذَا اسْتَوْلَى الصَّلَاحُ عَلَى الزَّمَانِ وَ أَهْلِهِ ثُمَّ أَسَاءَ رَجُلٌ الظَّنَّ بِرَجُلٍ لَمْ تَظْهَرْ مِنْهُ حَوْبَةٌ فَقَدْ ظَلَمَ وَ إِذَا اسْتَوْلَى الْفَسَادُ عَلَى الزَّمَانِ وَ أَهْلِهِ ففَأَحْسَنَ رَجُلٌ الظَّنَّ بِرَجُلٍ فَقَدْ غَرَّرَ
At a time when virtue is in trend in the world and among people, if a person entertains an evil suspicion about another person from whom nothing evil has ever been seen, then he has been unjust. And at a time when vice is in trend in the world and among people, if a man entertains a good idea about another person he has flung himself in peril.
This saying no 114 is the foundation and guidance for a most important segment of life.
Ali (s) says that in some era where people are living and their era is of good virtues, which means the culture, society, environment has goodness. In such a good virtuous era a person develops suspicion about another person though majority in general people are good and not evil. And the person about whom he is becoming suspicious even though he has not seen evil from him. This means he develops evil doubts about this person then Ali (a) says even though the entire society is virtuous, then this person is an oppressor. In contrary if there is an era of corruption where society, culture, atmosphere is such that people are indulged in corrupt, evil vices then in such an era a person carries good doubts about someone that this person might be good only, then this person has deceived himself.
What should be your thinking about people ? Ali (a) says that first see how is the society? If the society is corrupt then keeping good doubts, thinking about someone is deceiving yourself. But if the era is of good virtue then having evil doubts about someone is oppression.
Ali (a) has made a fundamental guidance that every person is living his life in some society. Like in the past there was a good virtuous era and what should we think about people wont benefit us, we have to recognize our society. Are we living or lives in righteous or corrupt society? If it is virtuous society then Ali (a) says do not have misconceptions about people in evil way, but if the era is of corruption then do not keep Husn e Zann , good thinking about someone else you will get deceived. Ali (a) is teaching is the way of living in society. In other words this is the knowledge related to the science of sociology which we have ignored it completely in our teachings.
Yesterday there was a conference of Vice Chancellors of Punjab and all leading universities VC attended this conference. The title was also very good on how we can sort out our society to develop correct understanding of religion through our education system. I was also invited there and I said the same fundamental thing about social pathology which is missing from our society. This is missing because social sciences which are human sciences is not part of our syllabus. Those sciences which teach us on how to run , manage, develop society have been forsaken by us. In Pakistan no one is even aware about the name of these sciences and the same situation is with another Islamic world as well. What we are being taught today are natural sciences which teach us on how to make technology, factories, industries etc. None of the natural science teach us how to develop our personality. If you can see IT, biology or anything else does not teach us how to develop yourself, systems of society and culture. The natural sciences are doing their work very effective and it is not their function also to do. These natural sciences are doing everything on the basis of research and they are doing miraculous things in their field of technology. Wherever human mind can reach they have reached there and they have made whatever they could base on the study of natural sciences. You can see you have the best technology means available with you. All these are made by technology and given to us. The problem which we have today and the incident of Christian churches burnt recently is not due to weakness in natural sciences, it is due to weakness in culture, civilization, society and religion. We have accepted that Pakistani society is a crisis society in terms of culture, civilization, politics and technology cannot bring us out from this crisis as it is not their field. The science which will take you out from this crisis is social science. We expect leaders, politicians to resolve but has anyone of them studied social sciences. First of all these leaders in government are not even educated, they have acquired positions through false degrees and even if they possess degrees it is in other fields. You hand over community to them and they have not studied society at all.
Religion is part of sociology and is amongst social affairs of man. In our society we do not even take name of social sciences. One leading government security officer told me that we caught the group of terrorists before operation, and asked them why you wanted to do this? They said these Shias are enemies of Sahaba (companions). The security officer said I asked these five persons to take names of ten Sahaba each of you. It is not difficult to take names of ten but these followers of Sahaba could not take more than three Sahaba. The same situation is of our politicians, those who have society, politics, religion with them are totally ignorant of social aspects.
What I mentioned to them was that the crisis in country is due to lack of social sciences in the education system. You do not teach Philosophy neither in universities nor in religious madrassa. You are teaching something else and expecting something else. If you make a dentist as president of country how will you run the country. First you should start these sciences in your universities. One problem with these sciences is that books on these is present from West. The basis of social science is Quran first and then Nahjul Balagha. Ali (a) has taught us big principle of sociology. He says first recognize the society in which you are living your life. You should not blindly live your life in the society, first see which category our society falls into. The Pakistani society falls in which category of sociology. If we have experts who can identify then you can find ways to resolve this. You do not have weakness in technology, your problem is in sociology. You have social diseases which government and police cannot solve. But why you did not solve Covid problem through government, instead you asked Doctors to fight them. The physician for social diseases are scholar who have studied social sciences and act upon it. I have been saying to develop a department of social pathology. Why did this incident of Jariwala took place? We do not find the need to do this but we should know that police cannot fix these problem. Police itself is a disease that has developed in the society. You have western formulas for resolving social problems but you should have divine formulas as well. This Nahul Balagha is the source for recognizing social problems and the way to live life in sick societies. Ali (a) is saying do not just jump into society first recognize the society. The society has been impurified by politicians, criminals. Is this society where you are living made by Ali, Hussain and in which pond are you jumping? Have you seen what filth is indeed where you are and your children are living.
Ali says first recognize if your society is virtuous or corrupt? Then live the way of living your life in these societies. A social leader is one who guides in social affairs, expresses the turns of society and how to counter those. A political leader can take care of municipal affairs and for this you need an infallible Imam. These skills can come in anyone and you need Imam for guidance. The sociologist Imam can make you recognize your society, then decide what should be your way of living your life.
