Note: The Alislam Team assumes full responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies in this translation of the Friday Sermon.
Friday Sermon Delivered by Hazrat Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad(ra) 28 September 1923 (Published in Al-Fazl, 5 October 1923)
Topics: Community accountability, moral reform, congregational vigilance, hypocrisy
After reciting the tashahud, ta'awwudh, and Surah Al-Fatihah, Huzoor Anwar said:
I have explained on many occasions how a community may be truly reformed. There is benefit in repeating the same message at different times and in different ways. Those who speak once and then fall silent, believing they need not say it again, are not acquainted with human nature. What the study of human nature reveals is that people benefit from being told things repeatedly, and that different individuals have different temperaments. One person may benefit from being told something ten times, while another may benefit from being told it a hundred times. There is also a great difference in the manner of expression — one style of address may move one person but leave another unmoved, while yet another style reaches that second person. So although I have explained these matters many times and in many ways, this does not mean I should not speak of them again.
Bear in mind that no community can remain alive if its training and upbringing are not sound. A community can only be called truly living if it is vigilant and progressing. However, if a community works with great diligence but has no successor to carry on its work, it can never truly survive. A community can only be safeguarded if it keeps its work going — that is a separate matter if extraordinary circumstances destroy its work.
There are many proverbs in the world that stir the hearts of those who hear them and lift their spirits. But there are some proverbs that are entirely wrong, and from which ordinary people conclude that if they reform themselves, they will have found peace — that if one is at peace, then all the world is at peace. This proverb, however, is false. If one person is at peace while the entire world suffers, that suffering will eventually transfer to him as well. For example, if a neighbour's house catches fire and the neighbour thinks, "It is someone else's house that is burning, what does it matter to me?" — that would be his mistake, because if he does not help extinguish the fire, he too will eventually suffer loss. In the same way, irreligion is like a contagious disease.
Consider: if a person protects himself from a poison, but leaves that poison unremoved, it may eventually reach his children. Allah, the Exalted, applies the laws He sets in motion equally to all creation. His Sunnah runs uniformly for all. And one of those Sunnahs is this: that the conditions of individuals and the conditions of a community are parallel.1 The Holy Quran uses the example of individuals' conditions to explain the conditions of nations. Thus the word of God also confirms that the same law which operates among individuals operates among communities.
Among individuals, we observe that the diseases that are most minute — such as tuberculosis — are caused by the most minute organisms. Those organisms enter the body of one who sits nearby, they are so small that they cannot be seen by the human eye. A fraction of a millet grain enters a person and fells even the strongest of men — a man whom no wrestler could bring down. The same is true of influenza: its germ is so minute that with a single sneeze from an influenza patient, millions of germs are expelled. They too overpower a person so completely that even the physically strong are brought low. Similarly, there is the seasonal fever that results from a mosquito bite — a perfectly healthy man, bitten by a mosquito, is stricken ill by its venom.
So all the diseases we observe are caused by the most minute quantities. If organisms this minute can fell the strongest of men, then what of a community in which there exist even a few individuals who are corrupt, heedless, violating the commandments of God, and setting a bad example? Our Community numbers no more than a few hundred thousand. In communities numbering in the tens of millions, even if a single individual is weak, that community is not safe from destruction. Then what doubt can there be about the ruin of a community that numbers no more than a few hundred thousand, if there are within it even a few weak individuals?
When minute organisms that cannot speak can fell a strong man, how can a community in which a speaking poison has spread remain intact? A community that does not remove such poisons from within itself can never be safe. It is therefore the duty of every living community to take care of its individual members. If within sight of its members there are hypocrites or wrongdoers, but no one thinks of reforming them or standing against them, if their misdeeds are not condemned — then our communal life will be in constant danger.
Do not think that such poison simply flows on indefinitely, for here too I draw your attention to the law of nature, which tells you that you can indeed protect yourselves from its harm. But this does not mean you should be heedless. Consider: diseases too are always present. Take cholera — some doctors used to believe it spread through clothing, and researchers found that the germ was still present and yet cholera was not spreading. Why? The reason is that while the poison is always present, it has no effect as long as the recipient has no susceptibility to it within himself.
There is no doubt that no community can be completely free of hypocrites and wrongdoers. But there is equally no doubt that if that community continues to resist them, those hypocrites will not be able to destroy its work. However, if the community does not resist those internal traitors, does not condemn their actions, but instead remains silent — then that silence is a sign that the susceptibility to that poison already exists within them. As long as the actions of such individuals are regarded with disapproval and resisted, the community will remain standing and be protected from destruction. But the moment there are members who see such people and remain silent, that will be the first step toward the community's ruin.
Therefore, I counsel you: pay attention to such individuals, and do not adopt silence when you see their misdeeds. All our efforts will be wasted if we do not reform those among us who are misguided and weak, and if we do not begin right now to reform the coming generations. If this Community wishes to truly spread the message of the Quran, then it is essential that it strive for the reformation of all its members.
So far our success has been in terms of arguments and proofs. But has polytheism and disbelief truly been eradicated? Has worldliness truly been replaced by piety? We have only been made to feel that no one can withstand the force of our argument. But as long as polytheism and disbelief have not been eradicated, this satisfaction of ours is not true satisfaction. Our true joy will only come when the dominion of Islam is established in the hearts of all people throughout the world. But if we do not treat those who are traitors to the Community, our successes will remain illusory.
May Allah, the Exalted, grant the Community the ability to understand its duty — that Satan's head be crushed, and that it be crushed by our own hands, just as the earlier prophets gave glad tidings that it would be crushed at our hands.
(Al-Fazl, 5 October 1923)
¹ This is an allusion to the Quranic principle that God's unchanging Sunnah (law) applies uniformly to both individuals and nations. See, for example, Quran 8:54: "Indeed, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves." And Quran 33:6: "Such has been the way of Allah with those who passed on before — and you will find no change in the way of Allah."
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