Persistent Study of Good and Evil
Blog Post 71
October 1, 2024
(This is Part 2 of “Good and Evil.” Part 1 was posted on June 29, 2022 in Blog Post #53)
As we witness the horrific, insane and utterly merciless genocide that the zionist state of Israel with the support of western, especially the US, and Arab states, and the western media continue to commit against the Palestinian people in Gaza for a whole year, and also their continuous arrogant and brutal attacks against them in the West Bank, and their indiscriminate murderous bombing and blowing up people via pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, and the
assassinations of so many heroic Muslim leaders, most recently Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (1960-2024) of Lebanon, a question often comes up or a thought often appears or a statement is often made such as: “How are the people able to withstand such an onslaught? How are they able to be so strong?”
Muslims have the ability to persevere, to fight back, to remain steadfast because of their unwavering religious belief and faith in Allah Subanahu wa ta’ala, in Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, and the power that is Islam. This belief, this way of life, this faith in and this love for our Creator has propelled non-Muslims, who are witnesses of what is being perpetrated by the shaitanic forces, to embrace Islam. Thus they join the multitude of believers and our mindset, our worldview, our understanding of Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala, our role in the scheme of things and our sincerity and certainty in what is right and good and just, which Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari (1) writes about in our continuing and upcoming blog posts, inshallah – what religious faith in Allah and Islam does for us – and this one about good and evil. We are certain that this world is not the end. We are certain that the shaheeds are alive. We are certain that the Muslims will be victorious. We say as Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala tells us to in the Holy Qur’an:
“Sufficient for us is Allah.
And He is The Disposer of Affairs.” (3:173)
“Sufficient for me is Allah.
There is no god except Him.
On Him I put my trust.
And He is the Lord of the Great Throne.” (9:129)
Subhanallah!
“Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil;
that put darkness for light and light for darkness;
that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
(The Bible, Isaiah 5:20)
Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari writes in Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe (1985, pp. 120-125) about good and evil and explains ten principles for us to think about to resolve the confusion about these concepts. (See Blog Post #53) (In this article, Ayatullah Mutahhari and I are using the word “evil” as in the opposite of good; in other words, bad.)
We will continue his discussion from the same book, starting with pages 31-33, in which the Biblical book of Genesis 2:15-17, which has been corrupted as Ayatullah Mutahhari states, tells us about Allah’s Subhanahu wa ta’ala instruction to Prophet Adam and his wife Hawwa, peace and blessings be upon them, to enjoy the fruits of every tree in the garden of Eden (Aden) except “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It says that the reason they were forbidden to eat from that tree is because they would die if they did. Later in Genesis 3:1-7, it states that the serpent, namely the Shaitan, lied to Hawwa, telling her that they would NOT die. Instead, if they ate the fruit of that tree they would “be like God” and know “both good and evil.” So she did and she gave some to Adam. Their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked and stitched fig leaves together to cover themselves. Later in Genesis 3:22, it states that Allah said, “The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives forever?”
According to this Biblical account, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala did not want Prophet Adam and Hawwa to know good and evil. He did not want them to become conscious! “The forbidden tree is the tree of consciousness.” In this line of thought, when Prophet Adam and Hawwa rebelled against their Creator, they attained “consciousness and knowledge” and were driven out of the Garden of Eden. It follows then, according to the Biblical account, that “all satanic suggestions are the suggestions of consciousness; therefore, the suggestor, Satan, is reason itself.” But of course, this is a fallacy.
According to the Holy Qur’an, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala created Prophet Adam and his wife Hawwa, peace be upon them, and taught him “all the names (realities) and then commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before him. Satan [who is not an angel but a jinn,] was expelled from the court for not prostrating before this viceregent of God, conscious of realities.” The ahadith “taught us that the forbidden tree was that of greed, avidity (2), something of this sort, that is, something connected with the animality of Adam, not with his humanity, that Satan the suggestor always suggests things contrary to reason but conforming to the passions of the animal ego, and that what manifests Satan within man’s being is the ego that incites to evil, not the Adamic reason. For us who are thus schooled, what we see in Genesis is quite astonishing.” It is the cause of the division and opposition between faith and reason which has plagued humanity for so long. We are not destined to be ignorant nor to be faithless and thus we must reject this illogical idea/conclusion.
“Allama Muhammad Iqbal of Lahore [in The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lahore, Pakistan, 1930/1962, p. 179] has said:
“Humanity needs three things today – a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe has, no doubt, built idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring.
“This is the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men while religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole societies. The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe today is the greatest hindrance in the way of man’s ethical achievement.
“On the other hand the Muslim is in possession of these ultimate ideas on the basis of a revelation, which, speaking from the inmost depths of life, internalizes its own apparent externality. With him the spiritual basis of life is a matter of conviction for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life.” (p. 34)
Human beings need a power that can detonate us from within, activating out hidden potentialities. We need a power that can produce a revolution in our heart, giving us a new direction. This power is “born of the sanctification and exaltation of certain values in one’s spirit, which values in turn are born of a range of elevated aptitudes in man, which result further, from a particular conception and way of thinking about the universe and man that one can acquire neither in the laboratory nor from syllogism and deduction.” (p. 37)
“Where faith has been, and science not, individuals’ humanitarian efforts have produced no great effect – at times, no good effect. Sometimes they have given rise to fanaticisms, stagnations, and ruinous conflicts. Human history is filled with such events. Where science has been, with the place of faith left empty, as in some contemporary societies, all the power of science has been expended on selfishness, egoism, acquisitiveness, ambition, exploitation, subjugation, deceit, and guile.” (pp. 37-38)
Materialists lie when they say “they are materialists in respect to philosophy but idealists in respect to morals, that is, they are materialists in theory, but idealists in practice and aims.” Their morals are nil. (p. 38)
“Faith must be kept far from superstition.” Science helps us with this. Without science, “faith is deformed into petrifaction and blind fanaticism; it turns on its own axis and goes nowhere. When there is no science and true knowledge, the faith of an ignorant believer becomes an instrument in the hands of the clever charlatans exemplified in early Islam by the Kharijites and seen in various forms in later times.
“Science without faith is a sword in the hands of a maniac, or else a lamp at midnight in the hands of a thief, so he can pick out the choicest goods. Thus, the scientifically informed person of today without faith does not differ in the least from the ignoramus without faith of yesterday in the nature and essence of his behaviour. What difference is there between the Churchills, Johnsons, Nixons, and Stalins of today and the Ghengises and Attilas of yesterday?” (pp. 36-37)
Or the Washingtons, Jacksons, Grants, Custers, Reagans, Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, Trumps, Sauds, Shahs, Sadats, Saddams, Leopolds, Elizabeths, Thatchers, Blairs, Indiras, Goldas, Rabins, Begins, Shamirs, Pereses, Sharons, Netanyahus…That last one – 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and 2022-NOW! There’s just too many to name…
But each of them, those who have already died and those who still face death, have to endure a despicable “life” of eternal damnation for the crimes they’ve committed. A placard stated at a protest against the zionists and their supporters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 28, 2024, 10 days before the one-year bloody mark of the genocide in Gaza and on the 24th anniversary of the second intifidah: “Hell is empty because the devils are here on Earth.” (or words with the same general idea). Those who are still “living” are “dying” as we write, a “dying” that is worse than anything they can imagine, anything they have done while “living,” pure evil (not just bad) runs in their veins, and the innocents’ blood is what they “live” on, what they love, what they hunger for. They cannot understand that it is the sacred blood of the martyrs that rejuvenates and enlivens the hearts of Muslims, ensuring the life of the Ummah. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala hasten their demise and let justice reign upon the Earth.
“And do not say about those who are slain in the way of Allah,
‘They are dead.’ No, they are alive,
but you do not perceive it.” (The Holy Qur’an, 2:154)
“And do not think of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead.
No, they are alive, near their Sustainer, they are given provision.
Rejoicing in what Allah bestowed on them of His Bounty,
and they receive glad tidings about those who have not yet joined them
from those left behind that they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.
They receive glad tidings of Favour and Bounty from Allah
and that Allah does not waste the reward of the believers.”
(The Holy Qur’an, 3:169-171)
On the day one man bold-faced lied to the nations of the world at their man-made assembly
and received applause from some, that day he played his bloody hand to seal his fate.
On the day one man spoke the truth to the nations of the world and received salutations
and pledges and devotion, that day Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala granted his prayers of shahadat,
the real life everlasting near Him, the living of the dear ones, the faithful ones, the beloved
ones, the honour of shahadat fisabil Allah.
He is alive!
He rejoices for those of us left behind for the Promise of Allah Subhahahu wa ta’ala is true.
(Our intention is to continue this discussion on good and evil in a future blog post(s), inshallah.)
Notes
(1)Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari was born on February 2, 1920, in Fariman, Iran, and was martyred on May 1, 1979 in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. He played a major role in reawakening the Islamic consciousness in the people of Iran, guiding and participating in the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the newly formed Islamic government, and as an intellectual Muslim thinker, teacher and writer.
(2) Avidity is defined as extreme eagerness, enthusiasm, interest, willingness, intenseness (mostly of desire).
Resources
Iqbal, Allama Muhammad. (1962; originally published in 1930). The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Lahore, Pakistan, p. 179. Accessible from Archipress.org, pp. 202-203 @ https://www.archipress.org/docs/pdf/iqbalreconstruction.pdf
Mutahhari, Ayatullah Murtadha. (1985). Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe. Trans. by R. Campbell. Berkley, CA: Mizan Press. pp. 31-34, 36-38. Accessible from Al-Islam.org @ https://www.al-islam.org/fundamentals-islamic-thought-god-man-and-universe-murtadha-mutahhari
Tabatabai, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn. (1984). Al-Mizan: An Exegesis of the Qur’an. Vol. 2. pp. 189-197. Translated by Sayyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi. World Organization for Islamic Services (WOFIS), Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. Accessible from Al-Mizan.org @ https://almizan.org/vol/2/1-309
Tabatabai, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn. (1990). Al-Mizan: An Exegesis of the Qur’an. Vol. 7. pp. 88-94. Translated by Sayyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi. World Organization for Islamic Services (WOFIS), Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. Accessible from Al-Mizan.org @ https://almizan.org/vol/7/1-268
