Majalis-ul Muayyadiya - by Al Muayyad fid-din Shirazi
Life and Lectures of Al Muayyad fid-din Shirazi
Contents Lectures 1
through 20 of the Majlis
The holy Qur'an says, "There are some people who say, ‘we believe in God and in the day of judgement' but in reality they do not believe." This is the characteristic of the hypocrites who do not profess what they believe in and do not believe in what they profess. By the words, ‘we have faith in God and the day of judgement' they intend to say that all their actions will be judged by God who will reward or punish them on the Day of Judgement. God has belied them by saying that "In reality they do not believe"; that is to say they do not speak the truth.
The knowledge of the oneness of God is beyond the acquisition of human mind by itself. There are some people who maintain that they can acquire this knowledge by themselves without the help of the Prophet or the Book of God. They go a step further and say that if God had not sent the Prophets, in this matter they could have easily dispensed with their teachings. If they think that by means of their intellect they can know the maker by seeing the things made and the Creator by looking at His creation, it is the height of insolence on their part. It is preposterous to imagine that a human being can acquire this knowledge without the help of the proper mediums namely the Prophets and the Imams. We know by experience that even the power of talking which is inherent in man and which is much easier for him to acquire than the knowledge of the Oneness of God, does not develop in him without the help of a teacher. Although it is in his nature to talk and God has provided him with the necessary apparatus for it, he does not and cannot talk unless he learns to do it from some one else. If this is the case of his talking how is it possible for him to acquire the complicated knowledge of the oneness of God without the help of a Prophet or an Imam? It is an impossibility.
Those who maintain that they can know the Maker from the things made, forget that even this much knowledge, which they claim to be self-acquired, is based on their seeing and hearing things from one another. It is because of their hearing things from one another that they are able to say that there must be a builder when they see a house.
If a man were to grow in a desert where he sees no house and hears nothing of this kind his intellect will not help him in coming to the conclusion that there must be a builder if he sees a house for the first time. This being the case it is as clear as daylight that the divine knowledge cannot be acquired without the help of the proper medium. This leads us to the conclusion that those people about whom the holy Qur'an says, "They say we have faith in God and in the day of Judgement but in reality they are faithless", are the people who do not believe in the mediums, i.e., the ‘Wasee' (Legatee) of the Prophet and the Imams from his progeny. No correct knowledge of the oneness of God can be acquired without our referring to them. We cannot acquire a correct faith unless we seek the knowledge through them.
The Prophet has given us the outlines of the subjects which are dealt with in the Qur'an. For the details we have to go to the Imams who are the masters of the subject. Had the Book been enough for us to teach us everything and solve all our difficulties independently of those divine agents who are the masters of this Book of God it would not have been necessary for God to tell us, "If they had referred the matter to the Prophet and to the spiritual heads from amongst them they, who are men of depths, would have explained it to them." The ‘men of depths' referred to in the above verse are the Imams from the progeny of the Prophet who possess the profoundest knowledge of the Book of God and the Tradition of the Prophet.
Contents Lectures 1
through 20 of the Majlis
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