Human Being and God 9798986194158

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Human Being and God

Dr. Mustafa Chamran Translated, Annotated and Edited Dr. Ishaq Qasim Fernandez

Human Being and God Inspiring Lectures

Dr. Mustafa Chamran

Translated, Edited and Annotated

Dr. Ishaq Qasim Fernandez

Original Title: Insan wa Khuda Author: Dr. Mustafa Chamran Translated Title: Human Being and God Translation and Editing: Dr. Ishaq Qasim Fernandez Graphics: Fatima Isabella Publisher: Dr. Ishaq Qasim Fernandez Publisher: International Resistance Publishers ISBN: 979-8-9861941-5-8 Year: 2023

Copyright Notice Copyright © 2023 by the International Resistance Publishers

International Resistance Publishers This book is protected by copyright. Publication in any form is prohibited and requires prior permission from the Publisher.

Contents EDITOR’S PREFACE .........................................................................1 SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF DR. MUSTAFA CHAMRAN ..............................3 IMAM KHOMEINI’S MESSAGE ON THE MARTYRDOM OF DR. MUSTAFA CHAMRAN ......................................................................................5 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................7 FIRST LECTURE ............................................................................. 17 LIMITATION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ........................................... 17 KNOWING HUMAN BEING .............................................................. 18 SOUL AND SPIRIT ......................................................................... 18 STAGES OF SOUL ......................................................................... 20 UNITY OF SOUL AND SPIRIT ............................................................ 23 THREE KINDS OF DREAM ............................................................... 26 TELEPATHY ................................................................................. 32 SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION .......................................................... 37 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SILENCE ........................................................ 39 INSPIRATION AND ILLUMINATION ..................................................... 40 DIVINE REVELATION (WAHI) ........................................................... 41 SCIENTIFIC THEORY...................................................................... 42 SECOND LECTURE ........................................................................ 45 THE METHOD OF THE HOLY QUR’AN ................................................. 45 DEFINITION OF GOD! .................................................................... 51 LIMITATION OF FIVE SENSES ............................................................ 56 THINKING AND REASONING -THE ORIGINALITY OF THE MIND ................... 58 ILLUMINATION AND SPIRIT .............................................................. 66 THE ORIGINALITY OF MATTER ........................................................... 68 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ............................................................ 69 THIRD LECTURE ............................................................................ 75 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT .............................. 78 THE EXISTING SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT OF THE WORLD ........................... 79 SCHOOL OF COMMUNISM ............................................................. 80

SCHOOL OF CAPITALISM ............................................................... 83 ISLAMIC SCHOOL OF THOUGHT ...................................................... 86 THE TOPIC OF RELATIVITY .............................................................. 90 DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL ........................................................ 97 FOURTH LECTURE....................................................................... 105 PURSUING DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL ....................................... 109 ECONOMIC BASIS ...................................................................... 112 CAPITALISM ............................................................................. 113 COMMUNISM ........................................................................... 115 THE SLOGAN OF NEITHER EAST NOR WEST....................................... 119 ISLAM ..................................................................................... 121 THE REAL OWNER IS GOD ............................................................ 128 ENDOWMENT ........................................................................... 130 THE BASIS OF GOVERNMENT ........................................................ 131 THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMIC GOVERNMENT............................ 133 MOVING TOWARDS INTERMEDIARY SCHOOL OF THOUGHT .................. 133 LIST OF VERSES OF HOLY QUR’AN ............................................... 139 LIST OF HADITHES ...................................................................... 145 LIST OF NAMES ........................................................................... 147 INDEX ........................................................................................ 149

Editor’s Preface It was in 2009 when I bought this book and had a glance through it. For several years it was forgotten in the busy academic life. This year, when I accidently picked it up from bookshelf on the day of martyrdom of Dr. Mustafa Chamran, I realized that while it is very old, it is still fresh in its content and innovative in its style and will be highly valuable for our young audience. I regret not preparing this valuable work for our English speaking audience earlier – I should have done it in the same year. Dr. Chamran was indeed par excellence in his deep understanding of religious concepts and his insight into modern science with a divine view. That’s highly unusual. We find religious scholars devoid of scientific insight on one hand and on the other, highly intelligent scientists who have no interest in pursuing the knowledge of religion. In this regards, Dr. Chamran was indeed unique. In addition, highly knowledgeable scholars and intellectuals are devoid of genuine human feeling. They usually have no concern for their fellow oppressed humans and do not give up their scholarly activities and intellectual pursuits, well set family life and bright academic careers and cannot sacrifice all these worldly attractions for them. They fail to take practical and courageous actions to support them and sacrifice for them. Dr. Chamran sacrificed his scientific career and family life for the sake of oppressed and for his true love of God and his strong sense of duty towards Him. His whispering prayers are unique and show his regular connection, his deep love for God and his mysterious relationship with divine and unseen world. While preparing this valuable book, not only the translation was done, but also the language was made a bit explanatory in many places and corrected to make it appropriate for the English speaking audience living in the Western countries. Few new diagrams were added to provide graphical illustration of difficult concepts mentioned in the text. Several footnotes were added (other than the original Farsi version) for important personalities, 1

Human Being and God concepts or events. References were added to hadithes and other texts mentioned in the lectures. List of verses of Holy Qur’an and hadithes as well as list of names of personalities mentioned in the text were added in the Appendix. It is hoped that this book will be well taken by the readers and the lofty thoughts, explanations and interpretations presented by Dr. Mustafa Chamran in these 4 inspiring lectures delivered in July 1980 will be appreciated. At that time there was no internet, no computers for public use and the world was divided into two main blocs of Capitalism and Communism, and the Islamic School of Thought in its pure and original form emerged on the map of world as the Islamic Revolution of Iran – it had just started blooming. The logical prediction of Dr. Chamran came true when Communism collapsed in 1990 and the Capitalist system is also declining in the present world and perhaps very soon the world will realize that Islam is the most appropriate school of thought for human beings to accept for living with justice and peace in the world. Dr. Chamran gave these lectures as a highly competent and inspiring university professor using blackboard and white chalk in the month of Ramadan, communicating in simple language with diagrams to make the audience understand difficult Islamic, scientific, philosophical, economic, social, political and metaphysical concepts in an easy to understand and logical manner. In the end I am thankful to Mr. Yahya and Dr. Zarei for their help in preparing this book. With prayers for the blessed spirit of Martyr Dr. Chamran… May God resurrect him with His friends and martyrs Dr. Ishaq Qasim Fernandez September 2023

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Short Biography of Dr. Mustafa Chamran Dr. Mustafa Chamran was born in a religious family in a village near Tehran on 2nd October 1932. He was very intelligent and from his very early childhood possessed unusual characteristics. He was unusually sensitive to pain and suffering of oppressed. In his school, college and later years in university, he was always top in his studies. During his young age, he used to attend religious lectures of Ayatullah Taleqani. After doing his bachelors in Iran, he got scholarship and earned Master’s degree from the Texas A & M University and his PhD with summa cum laude in electrical engineering and plasma physics in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley. He then worked as a research staff scientist at the Bell Laboratories and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the pain and suffering of oppressed in Lebanon forced him to leave his bright academic career and go for guerilla training in Egypt. After that he went to Lebanon to join Imam Musa Sadr in his movement for downtrodden and uplift of oppressed. There, he mentored young revolutionaries there to take back their rights from the oppressors. After the success of Islamic Revolution in Iran, he served as the defense minister and a member of parliament as well as the commander of Irregular Warfare Forces during Iraqi imposed war. He led the military operations in Kurdistan and Khuzestan and created epics of unbelievable heroism, unimaginable courage and defeated the enemies with his very fast and unusual military tactics. He was martyred in Dehlavieh, Susangard district in Khuzestan on 21st June 1981 during the war. He was buried with honor in the Beheshte Zahra cemetery in Tehran. Imam Khomeini issued statement eulogizing Martyr Dr. Chamran as a heroic commander of Islam. Dr. Chamran was not only a physicist, scientist and guerrilla fighter, he was also a great Islamic thinker, an enlightened scholar and a gnostic who mentored thousands of young in Lebanon and Iran. He is an icon of heroic resistance against oppression. He is also remembered as role model and an inspiring personality among college and university students in many countries in the Middle East and outside. 3

Imam Khomeini’s Message on the martyrdom of Dr. Mustafa Chamran In the name of God, the beneficent, the merciful We are from God, and to Him we will return I offer my condolences and felicitations to the supreme presence of the Imam of the Age1 - may our souls be sacrificed for him- over the inspiring martyrdom of Dr. Mustafa Chamran, the great commander of Islam and the alert combatant committed to the sublime path, who has left us for the higher angelic realms. Condolences because our martyr-loving nation lost a soldier who created epics on the fronts of the battle against falsehood, both in Lebanon and in Iran, and his aim of life was dear Islam and the victory of truth over falsehood. He was a pious warrior and a committed teacher that our Islamic country desperately needed. And congratulations because the great Islam presents such followers to the oppressed nations and masses and nurtures leaders like him in its training. Isn't it the fact that the life of faith and jihad is like that in its way. Dear Chamran spent a lifetime - from start to end- with a great divine aim and a pure and untainted ideology without attachment to any political groups and bands. His life was dedicated to gaining the light of divine knowledge and earning proximity to God and he strove on that path and sacrificed his life for it. He lived and died with honor and attained to the ultimate truth.

It is an art to fight in the way if God without political uproar and demonic displays and sacrificing oneself for the purpose and not the ego, and this is the art of men of God. He went with honor before the great God. May his soul be happy and may he be remembered well. But, can we have such an art? It is with God to hold our hands and remove us from the darkness of ignorance and 1

Imam Mahdi (as).

5

Human Being and God

sensuality. I offer my condolences to the noble nation of Iran and Lebanon, and also to the Muslim nations, the armed forces, and the fighters in the cause of truth, and to the family of this dear Mujahid, and I ask God Almighty to have mercy on him and patience and reward for his honorable survivors. Ruhullah al-Musavi al-Khomeini 1st Tir, 13602

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22nd June, 1981

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Introduction In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful One of the most lasting works left by the honorable commander of Islam, the Gnostic, Martyr Dr. Mustafa Chamran, is a short course of scientific and mystical lectures at the Tawheed Center during the days of the holy month of Ramadan in the year 13591. These are prepared for the readers after modification that was necessary to transcribe main theme of the lectures into writing with minimum change. It should be noted that if that gnostic commander of Islam had time to write this book in his own unique style of writing, a much more beautiful and attractive book would have been written and presented to the readers. However, the importance of the contents, the sweetness and the beauty of the way of expression and the manner of logical reasoning are so attractive that it is still a very valuable, useful, interesting and exemplary book in its own way, that raises very important issues in a simple scientific language and expression and with a clear and decisive argument. One of the most important issues that always occupy the mind of a curious person is the issue of knowing God, which, while simple, may be very difficult. If a person steps into this valley through the correct path of knowing God, he will achieve knowledge or understanding to the extent of his intellect and vision, and if he deviates from its natural path, he will face a very complicated and huge problem, which we can boldly say that none of philosophers, scientists and intellectuals, who were devoted to the proof and recognition of the transcendental nature through reasoning and logic, have not been able to solve this very obvious problem, while referring to human nature - nature that is pure and untainted and free from biases and prejudices. Well, one can immerse himself in the infinite ocean of knowing God and take advantage of it. The extent of this recognition depends on the purity and innate brilliance of the human soul, the purity of human nature, the closeness to his soul to God, and his 1

Ramadan of the Islamic lunar year 1400 / July, 1980.

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Human Being and God spiritual evolution, which in a human being reaches the level of divine prophets while in other human beings, it may be like the shepherd who is exemplified in the story of Prophet Moses (as) in the Mathnavi of Maulana Rumi2. Getting to know nature and the works of creation around us and most interestingly getting to know the human being itself - a creature that has physical body, soul and spirit, is the first step and is the best method for conscientiously appreciating and knowing God to the extent of capacity and ability of every human being. And this is the same method that the magnificent God has shown us in the Holy Qur’an. And in this holy book with its own unique style of description, God has mentioned in detail, the inner qualities of human being and his capacity to acquire spirituality and his innate ability to understand his Creator, the God. About this book This book has four inspiring lectures of Martyr Dr. Mustafa Chamran. To be brief, in the first lecture, the discussion focuses on God, Spirit and the Unseen World and in order to understand these, the philosophy of knowing human being is presented from three aspects viz. body, soul and spirit and with the help of two important and every day phenomena - dream and parapsychology or telepathy, the topic of the soul and the unseen world has been justified. In the second lecture, the method of the Holy Qur'an in proving God or God's existence is discussed by awakening human nature and cautioning it, citing verses from the Holy Qur'an. Here, the issue of knowing God to the extent of human capacity, which is in fact ‘zero’ compared to the God's essence and God's knowledge, is raised. After that, the ways to reach the realities and truth are investigated, which are: the five senses, thinking and reasoning, and inspiration and illumination. Based on the

Jalal al-din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273), was a poet, Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic originally from Khorasan Iran. Famous for his Mathnavi. For details of story, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_and_the_Shepherd_(story) 2

8

Introduction ‘five senses’, experimental and material sciences can be used, that have many errors and gradually become more complete and perfect. And based on ‘thinking and reasoning’, mathematical sciences, philosophy and logic can be used, that are at higher level than the experimental sciences but because their foundation stone is based on our experiences and senses and our internal capacities, their scope of accuracy and authenticity is not much compared to the first approach and it cannot be constant and true everywhere and always. Then the issue of ‘inspiration and illumination’ is raised, which is a kind of knowledge of the heart, and with the power of illumination, man is able to recognize and know ‘the spirit, the unseen world and the God’. At the end of the lecture, the discussion of the realm of science and philosophy is discussed and the issue or incorrect claim ‘the scientific nature of a philosophy’ is discussed and an interesting logical answer was given. In the third lecture, the basic principles of the most important human and divine schools were presented, and these schools should have the following three foundations in order to be called schools. The first is the philosophical basis, the second is the economic basis, and the third is the political and governmental basis and every principle is a collection of these three bases that collectively form a system in such a way that one can never look at one of these three bases without looking at the other two bases. While continuing this topic, three important schools and systems in today's world (Communism, Capitalism, and Islam) were discussed and compared. In addition, the existing systems were discussed primarily from the philosophical point of view: 1. School of Communism which believes originality of matter and denies anything that is metaphysical, transcendental and beyond materialism. 2. School of Capitalism which believes in the originality of the mind or intellect (Idealism). 3. School of Islam which is based on belief in God, the creator of matter and the mind (Realism). 9

Human Being and God Similarly, materialism relies on the objective knowledge of matter, and idealism is based on the mental or cognitive knowledge of matter, and Islam believes in the existence of matter independent of the mind, the knowledge which is subjective. Then, the issue of ‘predestination and free will’ is mentioned, which is the materialism of the Communism based on absolute determinism, and the idealism based on absolute free will of Capitalism, and the school of Islam which focuses on predestination with optionality, or neither determinism nor free will, but something between the two. In the topic of relativity, it has also been discussed that materialists consider everything to be relative and idealists consider everything to be absolute, and in the school of Islam the material world is ‘relative’ and ‘transcendent’ tends to be absolute. Then it is concluded that the school of Islam is the ‘Intermediary and Moderate school’, neither eastern nor western. In the fourth lecture, brief reference is made to the socialist and capitalist views on few aspects of Islam, that has multiple dimensions. In addition, the graphs of determinism and free are drawn in innovative ways using mathematics and physics, and it is shown that human being does not have a static personality or state of soul. Rather, human soul fluctuates and can rise from the low level of humanity to the high levels of humanity and then the highest levels of malakut (inner world); and from the lowest stage of Sinning soul to the highest stage of Self-satisfaction (satisfied with God) and then God’s Satisfaction (Soul that is approved by the satisfaction of God Himself). After that, the second fundamental basis of ‘Schools’ which is ‘Economic Base’ is discussed as follows: 1. Capitalist School (Capitalism) which believes in the freedom of ownership of trade and production, the final result of which is exploitation, colonialism, oppression and social injustice. 2. Communal School (Communism) which is devoted to the 10

Introduction negation of ownership, trade and free production and leaves all this in the hands of the workers' government with full power and control, which ultimately leads to Capitalism and state dictatorship. 3. Islamic School in which the main ownership belongs to God and humans are God's representatives or legislators and the limits of ownership are determined according to the conditions of the time and place, the Islamic jurisprudents and expert scholars and the Islamic Government. Based on these Islamic tenets, a person who is an owner is not allowed to waste, even if he has paid all his legal rights of ownership. At the end of this discussion, a very important and interesting topic of ‘waqf’ or religious endowment is mentioned and how the wealth and ownership in Islamic society can be adjusted in a beautiful and reasonable way, which is one of the honors of the school of Islam. After the ‘Economic Basis’ comes the turn of ‘Political and Governmental Basis’ in the three schools mentioned as: 1. In the Capitalist School, which believes in Democracy, and it means the majority rules over the minority and that has a beautiful appearance. However, in the end, it is the rule of the rich and powerful over other classes. And at the end, democracy only works for those who are rich and powerful. 2. In the Communist and Marxist System, they believe in the dictatorship of the workers or the proletariat, where all the power is in the hands of the workers' government and the ruling class, which results in dictatorship and disregard for the will and needs of the majority, bullying and injustice. 3. In the Islamic System, dictatorship is rejected, but the standards and laws of God govern the society and no majority is able to change them. Therefore, the Islamic government system is the divine government, which is based on three foundations: 1. Principle of human freedom which means that man is free and should not be limited except in front of God and divine standards. 11

Human Being and God 2. Principle of Qur'an and Sunnah (teachings of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)), which means the standards and divine laws of Islam. 3. Principle of Consultation, which means that within the boundaries of Qur’anic teaching and Divine standards, human beings are free, they have democracy and it is necessary to solve their problems with council and consultation. In the end of fourth lecture, it is emphasized that Islam is an intermediary school and the evolution of other schools over a period of time, will eventually reach it. Summary of the review and comparison of the existing important schools and the main topics discussed above are presented in a tabular form below: The Basic Foundation of Schools of Thought Philosophical Basis

Economic Basis

Political Basis

Materialism Originality of matter

1

Relativism everything

of

No right of Ownership, no freedom to produce or do trade (State Capitalism)

Dictatorship of proletariat and workers

Right to Ownership, Free market economy, Freedom to produce and do trade

Democracy or rule of majority

Absolute Authority Idealism

2

Mind based reality of matter, Absolutism of everything Absolute freedom

3

Realism, God as creator of matter. Mind perceives matter. Neither absolute authority nor absolute freedom. Material world is relative but metaphysical world is absolute

God is real owner and human being is the representative and vicegerent of God Endowment

Divine criteria plus Democracy based on three principles: 1. Freedom of human beings, 2. Qur’an and Sunnah and 3. Islamic Consultation

1= Communism, 2= Capitalism and 3= Islam At the end, effort is made to present the verses of Qur’an and 12

Introduction narrations and other quotations in the footnotes wherever necessary. These do not add to the volume of the book. In some places, dates of the of the lectures are mentioned. It is hoped that by the grace of God and the inner purity and sincerity of this noble martyr, the present book, which is a summary of beautiful philosophical topics and is the need of our present day society against the waves of attacks on Islamic ideology, will be useful in its own way so that it will bring God's pleasure and increase the ranks of this martyr. It is necessary to thank enlightened scholar Hujjatul Islam Muhammad Taqi Jafari for his guidance and also Dr. Abdul Karim Soroush for his help. And toufiq is from God Mahdi Chamran Esfand, 13663

3

February 1988

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First Lecture

First Lecture In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful My Lord! Open my breast for me. Make my task easy for me. Remove the hitch from my tongue, [so that] they may understand my speech.1 It seems that I will be at the service of my friends for few nights in a row and I will try to discuss some topics. Tonight, my discussion is on a fundamental topic about the basis of our philosophy and faith. As you know, in our opinion, God, the spirit and the unseen world are the basis of monotheism and Islamic philosophy. Therefore, belief in these facts is fundamental and basic for us, and whoever does not believe in these principles cannot accept the ideology and principles of Islam. There are different ways to reach these truths. Some people try to reach these truths through logic, through philosophy, through science, through experiments, and I feel that the discussion I will start tonight and will attempt in the best possible way to concretely clarify these facts to the listeners that such things exist.

Limitation of Scientific Knowledge As you know, our knowledge is not enough and cannot understand God, the metaphysical world, and the spirit. There is no doubt that the limits and limitations of knowledge do not allow objects beyond science to come within the scope of experience. Therefore, another way is necessary. In order to achieve this basic purpose, we start from human being. We say that human being is God's representative on earth. He is the manifestation of God on this land and water. Therefore, if we know human being and recognize his strength and limits, maybe we will be able to achieve our aim to understand about the spirit, God and the metaphysical world. Therefore, our method and approach is to try to know human being and know these facts with the experiences that deal with the daily life of this human 1

Holy Quran, 20: 25-28

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Human Being and God being. In order to know this human being, I will first present a theory and viewpoint to my friends and then I will try to prove this theory with experience. Therefore, that what I am going to mention will be a foundation and basis for our philosophical discussion in the future, and it is related to knowing human being.

Knowing Human Being In knowing human being, we distinguish three important and distinct aspects: first, the body; second, the soul, and third, the spirit. In most of the philosophical debates that many individuals put forward, they divide human being into two parts: they say that a part is material, and the other part is non-material or the material part and the spiritual. However, in the analysis and the inference that I am going to mention, we will see that human being is divided into three components and soul and spirit are totally different from each other and are not same in reality. These are two different realities that I will try to shed light on during this discussion and explain this topic for you. Even in the French and English languages, there are different words. In English two different words Soul and Spirit are used for these two realities.

Soul and Spirit In the Qur’an too, if we pay close attention, there is a huge difference between the soul and the spirit. We see that soul is a reality that is mentioned in singular as well as plural form. For example, soul, souls, while spirit is always mentioned as singular in Qur’an and its plural is not seen. It is true that in our dictionary and elsewhere, we mention it as plural. However, in Qur’an, it is only used as singular. They question you concerning the Spirit. Say, ‘The Spirit is of the command of my Lord, and you have not been given of the knowledge except a few [of you].’2 One of the detailed and useful discussions that perhaps I can 2

Holy Qur’an, 17:85.

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First Lecture do tonight will be about the soul, which indicates that this soul is in the process of change and evolution and it evolves, ‘Indeed Allah does not change a people’s condition, unless they change what is in their souls’3, and or ‘Every soul shall taste death’4. It is the soul, in which all this evolution and transformation take place. However, the Spirit, wherever it is mentioned, is singular and is God's command, ‘And breathed into him of My spirit’5. (I breathed my spirit into him). There are about twenty places where spirit is mentioned in the Qur'an, and in all of them it is a command from God, a manifestation of God, and that's it. It means that the spirit does not go astray. Spirit is the prophet inside a person, and the manifestation of God that exists in every human being, is placed in this spirit. On the other hand, our soul starts from very low stages and evolves to the higher stages towards perfection. That muddy human being who is generally mentioned is placed in this soul, not in the spirit. It is this soul that starts changing from the elementary and low stages until it evolves to higher to the divine stages and finally reaches to a stage where it doesn’t see anything except God. Therefore, you can see that this division that I have expressed to you is a new division that is a little bit abstract and expressive compared to the most of the speakers and writers and is different from them and I will explain the reason later. Our physical body is obvious to us and it is the body in which our physiology and biology function within this body. That is, the body is composed of biology and physiology, and it is what our science and our experiments of physics, chemistry, etc. discuss about this body. Whatever is expressed, is science, analyses and knowledge that arises from this human being, is all scientific knowledge and based on scientific experiments. However, the second part, ‘Soul’ (nafs) which is called Soul in

Holy Qur’an, 13:11 Holy Qur’an, 3:185 5 Holy Qur’an, 15:29 3 4

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Human Being and God English, is formed from the collection of feelings, acquisitions, inclinations, and that which deals with human feelings and human personality, and generally the human personality results from this second part. That is, humans share the same soul. If the spirit is the manifestation of God (order from God), and is same in all human beings, that what distinguishes human beings from each other is the issue of the soul. All the acquisitions, desires, will, wishes, etc., are gathered in the soul and shape the human personality. It is the past experiences of a human being, his good and bad qualities, and everything that is stored inside this soul. And the thing with which a person will be evaluated on the Day of Resurrection is the soul, not the spirit. That is, goodness, badness, sins, etc. are stored in this soul, and therefore it is with the information of this soul that a person will brought before the court of God's justice and examined. The spirit is the prophet inside, it is pure and unchanged. Therefore, the spirit is pure and unchanged, and in short, it is the manifestation of God, it is the vicegerent of God, it is the representative of God in human being.

Stages of Soul Before I complete this discussion, because it is the blessed month of Ramadan and I mentioned about the soul and its evolution, I want to complete this discussion about the soul and return to other topics. Therefore, accept this information and this division from me for now, and then I will provide you with other topics as a kind of empirical proof about it. However, it is the issue of the soul, and the thing that transforms a person and makes him stand out among people is the issue of the soul. In our school of thought and our philosophy, the soul is divided into seven different levels, and I am writing6 this division for you, which is very instructive. Therefore, the soul has the following stages: The first stage is ‘Commanding Soul’7. Of course, you have heard this in the literature, but the analysis and combination of 6 7

On the blackboard This is Nafse Ammara. Holy Quran, 12:53

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First Lecture these words in our literature is not as it should be and maybe it is not familiar. As you know, the Commanding Soul means rebellious soul, sinful soul, which is in the lowest stage of the soul, meaning that the majority of people who live like animals have the stage of commanding soul, they do not turn away from any sin or crime, they are subject of their desires. We call this as Commanding Soul. Second stage is, ‘Self-Reproaching Soul’8. From Arabic word laum, and laum means to blame. It means that a person's soul wakes up a little bit, and when he commits a mistake, this soul that wakes up a little bit, blames the person. Therefore, this stage of soul is called as Self-Reproaching Soul as it blames the person. Third stage is the, ‘Intelligent Soul’9. At this stage, intellect is breathed into the soul and this intellect affects human actions. Of course, intellect has a much higher meaning in our philosophy when they mention the first level of intellect, the second level, and the third level of intellect, it has higher stages from a philosophical point of view. However, anyway, in this present discussion that we are having, the Intellectual Soul is where, in addition to the self-reproaching, it is the result of awakening when is conscience and intellect are added to it. The fourth stage is ‘Inspirational Soul’.10 Inspiration means a soul that is so purified that it is inspired by God, and the realities descend upon this soul from the unseen world, which we will talk about more later. Of course, all these terminologies that I am writing here are Qura’nic words, and they can be found in the Qur'an with precise proofs, and these are not made or fabricated by humans. The fifth stage after Inspirational Soul is the ‘Tranquil Soul’. O tranquil soul at peace! Return to your Lord, well-pleased (with him), well-pleasing (Him)! As mentioned in the verses 27 and 28 of Surah Al-Fajr. Holy Qur’an, 75:2 Or Wise Soul 10 Holy Qur’an, 91:8 8

9

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Human Being and God Anyway, after the stage of Inspirational soul, there is a higher level of Tranquil Soul, meaning the soul has reached a level of tranquility and peace that it will not turn back. It is at peace and it has started journey towards perfection and God.

Sixth stage is ‘Pleased Soul’11. The soul has reached a degree of perfection that it is satisfied with the journey of perfection it has followed, and is satisfied with the relationship it has established with its God. Return to your Lord, well-pleased (with him), wellpleasing (Him)! The seventh stage, ‘Pleasing Soul’12 is where the beloved (God) is satisfied with him. The Great God is pleased with him, not that only the human being is pleased with himself and his God. Pleased Soul was the stage when the human being himself and his conscience were satisfied and pleased with his own evolution to perfection. But the Pleasing Soul, which is the last stage, is where that God is also pleased with him, the beloved Himself is also pleased with him. Of course, our mystics may use these words and phrases along 11 12

Or Satisfied Soul Or Satisfying Soul

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First Lecture with other words in the seven stages of Godly love. These are the stages where the perfection of the human soul occurs during its evolution, the first stage of which is the animal soul and the low levels, until it reaches a place where a person becomes godly. It reaches the level of God's satisfaction and the famous poem: ‘A person reaches a stage where he can see nothing except God’ applies to it. That is, is we wish to know who Imam Ali (as) was, I would suggest he was someone who was at this stage of the soul. When we discuss about Imam Husayn (as), we see that the last words that flowed from his blessed lips on the day of Ashura, i.e. before his martyrdom, he said: ‘My God, I am satisfied with Your decree, I am patient with that You have afflicted, I am in full submission to Your command, there is no deity but You, O helper of those seeking help’.13 It is the stage when a person has this high level of confidence and satisfaction. He is tranquil, pleased (with God), and pleasing (to God), and he accepts everything that God has destined for him, and he goes towards Him with complete satisfaction, and he does not consider anything other than God, other than the Beloved. Anyway, we can see that this human being starts from a lowest level person and reaches to the highest level by travelling through these stages of soul.

Unity of Soul and Spirit Surely when we have reached the stage of pleasing God, it is appropriate that I speak to you few sentences from a great and famous discussion among the mystics. Although it is not suitable for now, this Pleasing Soul that has reached this point becomes like a spirit in terms of its quality. That is, it reaches the same level of sincerity, same level of purity and the same greatness of the soul that is the manifestation of God. The spirit is the order of God. This soul, which was like mud and boiled and it rose from this material world, becomes like a spirit in the last stage of its evolution. It acquires the properties of the spirit. The same perfections that exist in the human spirit also arise in this soul. Of 13

‫إلهي رضا بقضائك صبراً على بالئك تسليما ً ألمرك ال معبود سواك يا غياث المستغيثين‬

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Human Being and God course, we will see that this spirit has its own characteristics, if the spirit is the manifestation of God, then the knowledge of God is also placed in the spirit, so it has a relationship with the unseen world. In the proofs that I will mention later, I want to prove to you that this spirit informs about the future events. It is aware of the past and the future. Now, if this soul reaches the point where it is compatible with the spirit, then the same information, the same knowledge that the spirit enjoys, this soul will also enjoy it. This is where we see that the people who reach the level of Imam Ali (as) have reached such a level of exaltation that they can establish a relationship with their God and can establish a relationship at any moment. This is important because their soul means their personality has become like the spirit. So this relationship between this human being and God, which is through the spirit, is possible for this human being at any moment he wishes. In any case, a large part of our philosophical problems is answered by how it is possible for a human being to establish an inspirational relationship with the Great God, or to establish an enlightened relationship. There is a reason for this. At the same time while saying this, I want to express this philosophical point to you that although this pleasing soul has reached the level of the spirit, it is still different from the spirit. Because the essence of the spirit is single, but the soul is material (this is something that I will tell you later) but they have one common characteristic. This point is very very important, though allusive and difficult to comprehend. To make you understand it, I want to give an example, and the famous example they give in this case is of the sun. Consider the sun from which light is emitted. Consider a molecule inside this sun. These molecules are exploding and in the explosion, this ray of light, photons are emitted and leave the sun. From here, assume that this particle of light leaves. At this point, there is a difference between this solar particle and this light photon in terms of essence. One is a photon, which is not matter at all, it is energy. The other is matter, but in terms of temperature, in terms of light intensity, in terms of heat, in terms 24

First Lecture of properties, they are the same in terms of attributes. That is, you can see that two things are placed side by side, which are different from each other in terms of their essence. One is matter and the other is light but from the point of view of temperature and intensity of light and other characteristics, they are same. The same example can be mentioned here for the pleasing soul and the spirit, that these two have reached a state where they are the same in terms of attributes, but they are different in terms of essence. The essence of one is material and the other is single, non-material and divine. Therefore, based on this example, we come to the conclusion that this soul, which forms a person’s personality, and is filled with feelings, acquisitions, perfections, and the gist of a person's personality, is the result of the internal attributes and inner movements within a person, and since the movement is placed inside it, we can say that it is internal energy. You know that in nature, movement is equivalent to energy. Any type of movement you consider in nature is equivalent to energy and because inside the human soul there is a collection of feelings, movements, desires and will and everything, the collection of these will be energy. Therefore, the soul we are talking about is energy, while the spirit is single. Spirit is the manifestation of God. Those who have studied physics know that energy is equivalent to matter. If we explode matter with an atomic bomb, energy is obtained, and Einstein's famous equation that equates energy with matter. which: E (energy) is equal to a factor (which is a very large factor) multiplied by the square of matter14, it shows the relationship between energy and matter. Therefore, when we say soul is energy, this energy is equivalent to matter. In other words, we can say that the soul is an existence that is material, but a refined material in the form of energy. But spirit is a single entity while the body is pure matter, and the soul acts as a relationship between this body and this single spirit. It was for this reason that it was necessary to discuss here that

14

E=mc2

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Human Being and God there is a difference between the pleasing soul and the spirit in terms of their essence, and they are different because one is matter and energy and the other is single, but they have common characteristics and attributes, they are apparently similar. Therefore, the evolution of humans in nature occurs in this way, and when a person reaches this level of perfection, he becomes Godly. In other words, his soul becomes like a spirit, and the spirit is the command of God, it has God's knowledge, it has God's creativity. Therefore, such a human being will have such a quality and characteristic. If you see Prophet Jesus (as) coming and raising a dead person to life and performing a miracle, these are not difficult tasks for such people. Because the personality of these human beings has reached the level of spirit, and that spirit is the command from God and it has a direct relationship with the great God. This was a division in terms of human knowledge and the division of the human soul into these different stages. But in order to concretely understand this division, I will tell you two very beautiful and effective examples in nature, that have a scientific and objective aspect and everyone has experienced it more or less in their life. And these two issues that I am stating, the first is the issue of sleep.

Three Kinds of Dream You have heard many things about dream, in the exegesis, books and interpretations, but I want to raise a scientific discussion about dream. Based on this analysis, dreams can be divided into the following three kinds. The first kind of dream is the bodily dream, which is the continuation of our daily life activities. When a person rests his head on pillow at night, his nerves, his feelings and his desires are still moving like a flywheel that turns two or three more times after the engine is turned off until it stops. This type of dream, which is a physical dream, usually occurs at the beginning of the night, that is, a person sees a lot of these types of dreams in those first and second hours. If you are a school principal, you dream 26

First Lecture that there are students, teachers, and others in the school and they are busy. If you are a factory worker, you dream of the same daily actions that are repeated, and we see a lot of these types of dreams. It is night and then our sleep becomes heavier and heavier, we forget these dreams, especially since these types of dreams are worthless, they have no value. By measuring alpha and gamma waves that are emitted from brain, it is possible to measure the depth of sleep. Which is, as said before that after the first hour, and especially between the first and second hours, a person's sleep becomes heavy, that is, in that first hour, the sleep is light, because the person's conscience has not yet fallen asleep properly, he is half asleep. After the first hour, before the second hour, sleep becomes heavy, and after about two hours of sleep, a person suddenly wakes up (which has reasons and is a very detailed discussion) and falls back to sleep. Anyway, this type of physical dream is the result of continuation of movements and the daily actions of the person that occurs automatically and has no value. The second kind of dream is the dream of soul, as you can see that this division is based on the same as the knowledge of human beings. Dream of soul means those moments when a person falls into a deep sleep and his limbs and senses, his ‘five senses’ are exhausted and his subconscious mind is awakened. As you may know that the famous psychologist Freud15 has done a lot of research on this type of dream and he has exaggerated so much that he ignores everything except that this type of dream is only about sexual desires. In this type of dream, the emotions and desires buried inside the human conscience come out of the subconscious mind and show themselves. Therefore, we see that this type of dream is a reactive dream rather than the continuation of daily actions. It is the reaction of daily actions. Let me give you an example. Suppose that in broad daylight a 15

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian psycho-neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, his methods and interpretation of human mind was mainly materialistic and limited to stages of psychosexual aspects.

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Human Being and God man comes and attacks a person and insults him. He kicks him and destroys his reputation. And this oppressed person is not able to take revenge from that oppressor, and this grudge settles in his heart and takes place in his subconscious mind and makes him suffer. It is possible that he doesn't understand and doesn't realize it, but there is a pain in his heart that always makes him sad. But in the dream, this grudge blooms and this weak and vulnerable man becomes strong and wise and takes his revenge from the oppressor. He knocks him to the ground and thus his inner desire is satisfied. And in the morning, when he wakes up, he feels cheerful and calm because this internal grudge has been released and has disappeared and it is in this way that most people wake up in the morning and feel cheerful and relaxed, and this is not only due to the relief of physical fatigue but a large amount is due to the removal of emotional troubles that put the human personality in a difficult situation and annoys him. As I said, Freud focuses only on one aspect of this dream, which is the aspect of sexual desires, and he believes that the confusions that arise in these people sink into their subconscious mind, and at night after two o'clock or after two hours of sleep, this subconscious mind awakens and his inner feelings are overwhelmed and manifest themselves. If he is in love, he will connect with his lover in the world of dream and is satisfied. And this is a corner of the same great principle that I stated meaning the reaction of the soul against the daily actions of humans. This dream is a valuable dream because psychologists are able to understand and analyze a lot of mental and internal problems of people from this point of view and know the real cause of these misfortunes and troubles and even find a solution and treatment for this person. The third kind of dream is the spiritual dream. After two or three hours past midnight, when a person wakes up and goes back to sleep, another deep sleep begins, and this happens after his internal complexes and troubles are released. And most of the time, this dream is near the dawn of the morning, that is, it is near dawn so that the person is freed from these internal problems by 28

First Lecture that time. Therefore, the third kind of dream for normal people usually occurs near dawn in the morning. In this type of dream, phenomena occur that cannot be analyzed by any science or logic. A person dreams about the future. A future event that cannot be predicted with any probabilities. The first type of dream was a continuation and the second type of dream was a reaction of the soul of a person dealing with the past. The first and second dreams are related to the human past, that is, it is the human existence that has gathered this action and this reaction within his personality and has caused these types of dreams, but the third kind of dreams are the ones that have nothing to do with the past. It is completely independent and no one can find a relationship between that dream and the past. This is where we say that there must be another source for this dream other than the body and the soul. I can give you many examples and everyone has seen examples of such dreams and had such experiences in his life. Of course, there are people whose hearts are purer and they have more of these experiences, but I think everyone has gained a lot from these experiences in their life. I mention one example in order for me to scientifically analyze it for you so that you can see that there are no other possibilities and if there was a chance, we could discuss other examples. A woman who was very capable from a spiritual point of view and I was familiar with her, saw a very interesting dream. Her family was looking for their cat, of course, a special cat named Sammy. She dreams that she got into a car with her husband and went after a cat and left the city and entered another city from a certain street and crossed a bridge. After passing the street on the right and the street on the left, they saw a man washing his car in front of a garage. They ask that man where is a certain address? The man says, for example, go two streets ahead, turn right and then on the left is a house with a red door. For sure, all of these happen during her dream. Then in reality they go to the same address and reach a house with a red door and find the cat they wanted and return. After this incident sometime passes, for 29

Human Being and God example, a few days, and then by accident or something else, this family wants to have such a cat. The lady who had this dream described the same dream to her husband on the same night and told the exact address. When they go to find such a cat, the husband of this woman, who drives the car, remembers the address that his wife had told him in a dream some time ago is almost the same address, and then he no longer reads the address on paper that she wrote to him. He goes towards the same address and details that was in his mind and reaches the place where he sees a person washing a car and then he asks him questions and he goes through the same things and with the same memory that he had from the past and he reaches the door of the red house and in the red house he sees that yes, that's the same place where the special cat is and gets it. These events that I am telling you are from the future, that is, someone dreams that will happen in the future and has nothing to do with the past. That is, if it has a relationship with the past, it must have a relationship with a person's soul, with a person's personality, or with a person's internal attributes. While this dream absolutely speaks of the future, the future of these addresses has nothing to do with the past of this person. Some materialistic psychologists who want to escape from this philosophy that I am mentioning say that this is a coincidence of possibilities, which means that every human being has thousands of dreams at night and most of these dreams are lies, but one of these dreams turns out to be true by chance. In the example that I gave you, that he passes through those streets and reaches a certain place, if you want to calculate based on the probability calculation, the probability that someone by chance saw all these possibilities in a dream and it will come true is one in a million. Which is nearly zero. That is, scientifically and mathematically, the possibility of such a dream is zero. That is, science rejects this. Science and mathematics do not accept that such a phenomenon may happen non-accidentally. Therefore, it must have a reason and a source. As I said, because we see that it has nothing to do with the soul, it has nothing to do with the body and does not 30

First Lecture speak of the past, but speaks of the future, that this soul of ours is the collection of our knowledge, our acquisition, and our inner reaction. All these have nothing to do with this dream, so there must be another source. The origin is this phenomenon and based on the philosophy that we are trying to explain, only the ‘spirit’ can perform this action. This is because as I have said before that spirit is the command of God and you know that from philosophical point of view, God has no place and no time. It means that God is out of the dimensions of space and time. For us, a thousand years ago, this year, and the next thousand years are different, there is a time difference. But for God, since time is zero, the past thousand years and the next thousand years are in the same row and are one single reality. They are one truth. For the spirit too, which is the manifestation of God, a thousand years in future, the present and the past thousand years are all the same. For God there is no difference and so for the spirit too, there is no difference. The spirit will have knowledge and awareness of all periods of history, both past and future. And in the dimension of space, it is the same as this place for the human body, which creates a difference. But when we say that God is beyond the dimensions of space, it means that all places are one point for God. He is here, He is under the ground, or the top of the galaxies, every place is same for God. Since it is same for God, it must be same for the spirit, which is the manifestation of God. Therefore, for a person who has established an inspirational and illuminating relationship with his spirit, all the places will be the same, all times and all places will be a single reality for him, they will be a reality, so such a person will be able, at least in this state of dream (third type of dream) to understand and perceive all the times and all the places with the help of his spirit and bring news and bring correct news. The explanation that we offer philosophically for this kind of dream is such that the materialists are not able to explain it in any way. They try to deny it. Denying that it does not exist is a lie. But as I said and I can give you thousands of examples, there are 31

Human Being and God some things which will happen in the future and based on the calculation of probabilities, it is impossible to take place by chance, and with this philosophy that I have stated, it can be explained and becomes clear to understand. One of our friends before the exam (exam was in France) dreamed that he wrote in the exam paper and then he made two mistakes, two red lines were drawn under those two words and he tried very hard to see and read these two words, but he couldn’t do so. The time passed, one week later or ten days later he goes to the final exam session and takes the exam as they say a similar saying in France, and after they announce the results, he gets his answer sheet and as he saw in his dream, exactly the two mistakes and two red lines under the two words. You see, this dream has nothing to do with the past, it is a dream with few parameters, that is, all the words in this dictation may be fifty words, two of which is two in fifty, but despite this, it is impossible based on the calculation of probabilities that someone has such a dream by chance. See that it is interpreted after a week. There are many other examples that I do not want to take your time and prolong your presence. But I feel that everyone has seen and sensed such experiences in their life, and to justify this type of dream, they should think of a way, and the best way is the explanation that was mentioned.

Telepathy The second part is telepathy, which is a new science in psychology. A new part has been added to this psychology or psychology, which is called parapsychology, meaning beyond psychology. ‘Para’ in French and English also means beyond. This issue of hypnotism and new sciences that I want to talk about is in the topic of parapsychology, that is, it is a part of our psychological science that has not yet reached its definite place in the scientific system, it is a topic beyond the science of psychology. In this context of parapsychology, I will give you some examples to clarify few facts based on this scrutiny and 32

First Lecture analysis. The first step that is taken in this parapsychology, and our friends are all aware of it, is the issue of hypnosis. In hypnosis, a person establishes brain communication or wave communication with another person who is sitting in front of him, and this is a practice that the public has seen and is psychologically acceptable, and no one can deny it, and it is not an important practice. In hypnosis, as you know, when a person hypnotizes a medium, the hypnotized person cannot say anything except what is inside him, he says things that are inside him, that is, he may ask his name, he may get information from him and he opens his subconscious mind to the hypnotist and tells him everything he has inside. And this is a scientific matter, it is acceptable to all scholars, whether material or spiritual without any difference. After hypnosis is the second stage, and that is telepathy. The topic of telepathy is a broader and deeper one. Telepathy, which we understand from the word “tele” which is about long distance, means communication from a long distance, where one person communicates with another person while they are at a great distance from each other. I myself have had these experiences. A human being in one room and another person away in the building in another room establish a brain connection with each other and talk to each other. Again this is scientific and scientifically acceptable and anyone who wants to know, can read about telepathy in an encyclopedia, and will see that it is an acceptable scientific matter and everyone accepts it.16 There is nothing to say that it is delusional, reactionary, etc., it is an accepted fact, and there are different theories for the perception of this type of telepathy or this type of brain connection between two people, and I will explain the best of them to you, which are very informative. Basically, in nature, based on the new physics of everybody, everything emits a wave from itself. In short, matter is nothing

16

Brain to brain communication is now scientifically acceptable and several research papers have been published to prove it.

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Human Being and God but movement and movement, that is, wave. Even this chalk that is in my hand is made up of molecules, suppose that molecules are made of atoms and atoms, of electrons and protons that have motions. Waves are waves with a high frequency and waves with a lower frequency, but anyway according to this new physics, everything in nature is a wave and emits a wave from itself. This is a right. Therefore, when I or my brain thinks then a wave is emitted from my brain, it spreads and it goes in all the space and all around, and then it reaches another human being, his brain, which is the receiving party's brain. If we compare it to a wave, it is like a radio transmitter that sends out a wave, and the other side's brain is like a radio receiver that receives this wave. If he is able to catch this wave, he can talk to me. This is telepathy. That is, telepathy is the connection of two people from a distance by a wave that is emitted from the brain of one. It spreads and reaches the brain of another. Now why do some people get it and some people don't? In the radio, you have seen that when a transmitter sends a wave, you, who have a radio receiver, have to measure this wave. You turn the capacitor screw left and right until the special frequency that came from the transmitter is matched to this radio. Radio is able to catch it. Otherwise it is unable to catch the sound. Now that we are standing in this space, there are thousands or maybe millions of waves in the space, but we are not able to catch these waves unless they bring a radio and match the capacitor of the radio to a particular wave. So when I send a wave, my wave has the specific frequency, a human being will receive it who has the same frequency receiver as mine, otherwise he cannot. It is for this reason that you see a human sends a wave, some people receive it, others do not. The reason is that the human beings who have matched the frequency of their waves with another one, only they can receive it. You may see that twins when they send waves, because they are of the same age, they easily communicate with each other. You can see mother and child because they are close to each other physiologically, biologically, etc.) the waves they send are close 34

First Lecture to each other and for this reason when the child talks, sends wave, mother can easily receive it and vice versa. Or you see, when two friends who are very close to each other, their thoughts and their feelings are close and harmonious, and one of them has a thought in his mind, and his friend repeats that same thought. This shows that as soon as this thought enters the brain of the first person, it affects the brain of the second person and the second one takes it. Therefore, in the case of telepathy, if a connection is established, it is because instead of a single frequency, they have a frequency band in their brain and those who have ability to change the frequency band of their brain are the human beings who instead of sending a single frequency, create a band of frequencies in their brain, and so in this way the person who sends waves, if I am able to pass a frequency band through my brain instead of a single frequency, and one by matching the different frequencies with the transmitter wave, I can absorb that wave, which is called sweeping, that is, I will be able to sweep a series of waves in my brain and pass that between these waves that my brain sweeps, one of these waves is a wave that came to me from the other side. Therefore, you can see that in nature there are people who are strong in terms of telepathy, that is, people are able to send a band of waves instead of a single wave, and send different waves, one of which will probably affect your brain. Or vice versa in the receiver as well when someone thinks he thought or idea has a frequency, and if I am able to change the frequency of my brain so I can catch the waves of the other side, I will be able to do so. Among the examples of many experiments they do, one is that you sit in the bus and focus on a person in the front seat and you send him a message (you send a signal), for example, you say turn around and look at me. You send this signal and continue to do so. You will see that suddenly that person will turn around and look at you without talking to you. These are the experiments that are done to prove telepathy and one can establish a relationship with the other party. One of 35

Human Being and God the most beautiful things in nature is about people who are anxious, worried and afraid. Instead of one wave, these people send thousands of waves from their brains. For example, a person whose name is Johnny. He is a thief and he has escaped and the people are running after him to catch him. This thief climbs on roof top and he hides in a secret corner above the roof, but since he sends these waves so strongly and the waves affect the people who follow him, one of them turns his head and looks at the right spot exactly where that thief is hiding. In a natural situation, it is very rare for a person to find the place where thief is hiding. Sometimes you are walking down the street, you see an old friend and you don't want him to see you; you are worried, you are worried that he may see me. As soon as you think these thoughts, you see him turn right around and look you in the eye. Why? Because you are sending the waves. And these are the waves that affect the receiver individual, whereas if you were walking normally and you didn't think about him at all, it would be impossible for him to look at you. These are the facts that are clearly shown in telepathy. Of course, I don't want to express the whole of this philosophy, all of this physics and this technology, but these are some of the scientific analyses that they have done about telepathy. But again, this problem that I am telling you is a scientific problem. It is an acceptable scientific problem. It is an experimental science, that is, I can convey to you what I currently know about. But those who do telepathy can't tell about the future the main thing which means that they can't tell about the future, the only thing they can do is to take out the information of your brain. When they establish a relationship with you, while their brain wave is synchronized with your brain wave, the information that is passing in your brain is transmitted to them and that's it, they don't tell you about the future. For example, in these examples of telepathy, a person is standing here and says to the other person that you should write your name on paper. The other one while is far from the first one and is trying to cover the page writes his name and thinks about his name. For example, the second person write ‘Hassan’ and thinks about ‘Hassan’. Since the second 36

First Lecture person thinks, he sends a wave and the first one receives the wave and can say that you have written ‘Hassan’ and your name is ‘Hassan’. If the second person was able to write ‘Hassan’ but thought about ‘Husayn’, the first one may say your name is ‘Husayn’ because he receives and understood the second one’s brain waves. Therefore, this action is not very important as it doesn’t tell about future and I want to say that this is a scientific matter and we can prove it with science and technology and it is acceptable to us and acceptable to scholars.

Spiritual communication But the third section is spiritual communication, which is very different from the first and second ones. I want to say that our science has understood and understands these two topics and even analyzes them, but despite this, there are other phenomena that cannot be justified or explained by this science and technology unless another factor and parameter intervenes in it. And in order to make this clear, I will mention an example for you to make it clear that this third type of connection is another type of communication. This story is a story that happened in the Netherlands. One of the Psychics (Mediums)17, those who have inspiration, they brought him to be tested, and some university scientists and psychologists wanted to test him with all the scientific tools and see how he can tell about the future. It was a movie theater, like the size of this hall. They brought this man to the hall in the morning and the movie theatre was empty, and the scientists asked this person, for example, in this seat (they specified a seat) ‘Tell us who will sit tonight? This medium, this person who wanted to prophesize (predict), plunged himself into a state of revelation and after putting pressure on his brain and brief sweating, etc., he said, ‘I see that a woman will come here tonight with these characteristics. And then he described the 17

Psychics use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the five physical senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws. Despite controversies they are popular in Western societies and help in solving crimes and mysteries.

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Human Being and God characteristics of that woman. He described her age, her clothes, the color of her clothes, her hair, he said everything about the woman. After that, they asked him, ‘Okay, now follow her to find out where she is.’ He again put himself in the state of revelation and then said she came out of that door, went from such and such way, from such and such street, from such and such direction, etc. He then accurately described the address, and he went on until she reached a certain house, and she rang the doorbell and even stated the number of the house, then she went inside the house. They want him to enter the house and find out what is inside the house, but his power couldn’t help, that is, no matter how much he tried to reveal and put pressure on himself, he couldn't do it anymore. This guy was then under their supervision so that he doesn't communicate with anyone. These scientists were hiding in corners of the cinema hall without telling anyone to see what would happen. When the night sets in and people start entering the cinema hall, they saw that a woman came with the same characteristics that the medium had described and sat on the same seat. After the cinema was over, they saw that the woman started walking and without talking to her, they followed her, they saw that she did the same actions that he had predicted and went and went and went, until finally she reached a house with such a number and such a sign and entered the house. Kindly see that this example I just described is completely different from telepathy and hypnosis, because as I said about telepathy, telepathy speaks of the information that is currently in your mind, and it is you who gives this information to the friend. But the case I mentioned is about the future, that which has not yet appeared on anyone's brain, in any book, or on any tablet, and it informs about the future. Therefore, the source of this type of revelation must be another type, and this type cannot have any other explanation other than the relationship of the spirit and the absolute knowledge. One of these mediums was being questioned and answered in France, and this medium was looking inside a crystal (some of 38

First Lecture these look inside the crystal and tell about the future). Suddenly he saw that a ship was burning in the ocean. They ask him about the capacity of ship, length of ship, breadth of ship and its other aspects. In short, he provides all the details and says that people are throwing themselves into the sea and the ship is on fire and has tilted and is about to sink. And then he reads to them the name written on the ship, for example “Maurice” and the meeting was over. A week or ten days pass, and then a ship with the same specifications sails in the Atlantic Ocean and catches fire. That is, one week or so earlier, all specification and even the name he mentioned was the same name except for a small mistake, and that mistake was that when he pronounced it, he should have said ‘M’ in the name, that he read ‘N’. This means that this person pronounced a letter that was ‘M’ as ‘N’. Then these scientists go and investigate and pay attention to the last photos taken of this ship and see that a part of letter ‘M’ was faded and could not be read correctly. Therefore, at that moment when this person read the name of the ship, this ‘M’ was almost seen as ‘N’ and the mistake he made was logical, that is, he read it correctly. So we see that a human being is able to see an event that will happen a week later and accurately predict and forecast it, and as I said, it is different from telepathy, it is different from hypnosis, it is completely different from these types of communications. Therefore, it must have another source, which can only be the spirit, that is, another agent that can communicate with the absolute intellect or absolute knowledge. If this connection is established, as I said, the past and the future are the same for him. Because the spirit like God is beyond the dimensions of time and space. Therefore, the future and the past are the same for it and it can tell these truths and reach them.

The Philosophy of Silence Therefore, with the two concrete facts of life, one theory of dream and one theory of telepathy, we come to the conclusion that based on this triple division, there is a third type that cannot be explained or justified in any way except through the spirit, 39

Human Being and God which is the manifestation of God and is a command from God. In order to complete this discussion of the soul and this state for you, I want to mention you another fact about sleep. In order to go from the first kind of the dream to the second kind, you have to dissolve those previous feelings and connections so that you can reach the second kind. Regarding dream, it is very clear that you reach the second kind when all your muscles and your body have fallen into absolute sleep, which is said to have reached silence. When physical silence is achieved for you, that mental movement occurs. The same situation exists for the second to third part. When your psychological part falls into silence, the third part starts to move, and this is called the philosophy of silence, in which the Indians also believe. There are different Indian schools that even when they go to the temple, they remain silent in front of their guru. Silence here means that in the first stage they totally relax their own body. When they are free of their body, their soul is moved by this. In the next stage, they disable their own senses even their own intellect so that their spirit can communicate. In a normal state, for persons who don't have these powers, these states occur naturally in sleep because in the first stage, the body relaxes, and in the second stage, the mind and soul become functionless, and therefore, automatically, the third part (spirit) becomes apparent. However, there are persons who in the state of normal alertness can completely paralyze their body or silent their soul at any moment they wish (philosophy of silence). Therefore, the third state that we call inspiration or illumination can be achieved and it is possible to communicate with the Almighty God or with the spirit and reveal to us some truths or realities, and we call this inspiration.

Inspiration and Illumination Thus, in this third part, inspiration and illumination mentioned in the philosophy, where human being puts himself out of work and then silences his own intellect, his own ego, his own personality and then his heart or soul begins to enlighten and thus connects with the spirit. When he communicates with 40

First Lecture the spirit, he will be able to perceive the truth and reality.

Divine Revelation (wahi) Philosophically speaking, we call this phenomenon that I have just told you as inspiration, that is, there is a luminous relationship between this human being and God, between this human being and the spirit of a higher level, which we call ‘revelation’, which is the revelation of the prophets, and the revelation of this connection is from above to down which means that it is God who communicates with humans. Inspiration is when a person prepares himself from below to establish a relationship with God and to receive the news, while in case of revelation it is the God who wishes to communicate with human beings and so the information comes from above and descends on human being. As in the case of revelation, it the God who sends the information, and this information will be absolute and 100% correct and complete, whereas when a person wants to make a connection from the bottom up, it changes according to his capacity and personality. If his personality is weak, he may understand a small portion of the truth. As the personality of the person develops to higher levels, it will be able to understand a higher levels of truth. In the case of inspiration or illumination, they usually give an example and say that in this world of existence, sometimes a flash of lightning strikes and this lightning illuminates the world, and in that bright moment, imagine that a person sees an object or a reality, but for a very short moment. Therefore, the peace of this person is not complete and absolute in the state of inspiration and illumination, but in the state of revelation that the Great God wills to establish this spiritual relationship, this connection will be complete and absolute. Based on it, even the very minute details of matter including alphabets and words will be completely clear and understandable for this person with reality and certainty. It is a very detailed, accurate and beautiful discussion that I 41

Human Being and God have tried to summarize for you in this short duration of time, and it is almost the best way to justify concretely, experimentally and scientifically for accepting the unseen world and the spirit. He who has accepted the unseen world, has in fact, accepted God.

Scientific Theory I should have said this in the introduction, but I'm saying it now that from a scientific point of view, in order to justify a phenomenon, you have to establish a theory, that is, if you were not a believer and you did not worship God, and I would say that we know that these phenomena exist in the world. And scientists try to justify these phenomena, and I also try to justify these phenomena with my own theory, and these are the theories that I present, and when open theories can explain these phenomena well, this theory of mine can also do so. It is acceptable until science proves otherwise. What I am saying is a scientific discussion about Scientific Theory. Suppose that when Einstein first came and established his own law about relativity, twenty years passed when they were able to prove experimentally that what he said was correct, but during that time of twenty years, it had not been proven and it was only a theory. It is acceptable that this theory can better explain these phenomena. Therefore, these theories that I have explained to you are the best able to justify these phenomena that no other psychologist and no other philosopher will be able to justify these phenomena so clearly, so accurately, and so beautifully. And until it is proven otherwise, these theories are scientifically acceptable. I mean, if a materialistic person was sitting there, he could not reject my words. We say to him, ‘If you are able, come up with a better theory’, but this theory that I told you was the best theory to justify these objective facts in nature. So, this helps us to sense and feel the spirit, the connection with the unseen world, and God. Scientifically also, these objective and realistic phenomena exist so that we can find their facts. Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings 42

Second Lecture

Second Lecture In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful My Lord! Open my breast for me. Make my task easy for me. Remove the hitch from my tongue, [so that] they may understand my speech. Last night, I talked about God, the spirit and the unseen world, and my idea was to present the existence of God concretely in a new way to my friends, so that everyone with their level of conscience is able to know God, and for this purpose, I described the philosophy of knowing human being with three different aspects, that is, one was the body, the second was the soul, and the third was the spirit. To get to the point, I mentioned two practical and every day phenomena, one of which was the topic of dream, and the other was the topic of parapsychology or telepathy. And I also explained to you that there are phenomena which exist in nature, and that without accepting spirit and unseen world, these cannot be explained or proven. All the scholars of materialism and psychology have failed so far to explain these spiritual communications. Tonight, pursuing the speech, I want to continue in the same way and in the same style. I want to start with the Holy Qur’an.

The method of the Holy Qur’an This systematic method that I used to explain to you is the same method that the Holy Qur'an also uses. The Qur'an does not want to prove God with material, physical or chemical sciences. The method that the Qur'an uses is a method that awakens the conscience of a person, enlightens the inner voice, and makes a person so alert that he understands God with guiding light, without the need for physical, chemical, or philosophical analysis. As I explained to you, in the case of the spirit, the matter of illumination, inspiration, and unseen relationship was mentioned. When you pay attention to the Qur'an, you will see that it suddenly puts man in the context of a question: Is there any 45

Human Being and God doubt about Allah, the originator of the heavens and the earth?1 And it suddenly challenges human being and asks him about the Great God: Do you have doubts about His existence? The One Who is the creator of this earth and sky. A short but mind blowing question. I will read another verse for you: Are different masters better, or Allah, the One, the irresistible?2. Is it better to worship these many gods or to worship the one God who is all-powerful? In other words, according to human nature, if his heart and conscience are pure and clear, as soon as these questions come to his heart, he will give the clear and correct answer. There is no need for complicated and ambiguous philosophies nor there is any need for any physical or chemical proofs.3 One of the physiologists of this century, a materialist philosopher named Büchner4, who was a famous German surgeon, says: ‘I believe in God whenever I find God under my knife and because I have not found God under my surgical knife so he does not want me to believe in him.’ Or one of the Russian astronauts5 who went into the space with rocket said: ‘I went to the Amazons and flew and did not find God, so there is no God.’ You can see that the Holy Qur’an does not adopt this technique and this method in any way. It is so clear to him it is so clear that it refers to the heart of a person and raises these questions: ‘Is there a doubt about Allah?’6 Do you have doubts about the existence of Holy Qur’an, 14:10 Holy Qur’an, 12:39 3 Reference to Holy Qur’an, 13:16. “Say: ‘Who is the Lord and Sustainer of the heavens 1 2

and the earth?’ Say: ‘(It is) Allah.’ Say: ‘Do ye then take (for worship) protectors other than Him, such as have no power either for good or for harm to themselves?’ Say: ‘Are the blind equal with those who see? Or the depths of darkness equal with light?’ Or do they assign to Allah partners who have created (anything) as He has created, so that the creation seemed to them similar? Say: ‘Allah is the Creator of all things: He is the One, the Supreme and Irresistible.’” Probably refers to Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner (1824 –1899) a German philosopher, physiologist and physician and one of the exponents of 19th-century scientific materialism. 5 Probably refers to Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) who was the first human being to travel to space. He became international celebrity and was awarded nation's highest medal, the Hero of the Soviet Union. He died in MiG-15 jet crash at the age of 34 years. 6 Holy Qur’an, 14:10 4

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Second Lecture God? Who created this earth and sky? That is, it is so obvious, it is so clear that it does not need discussion, analysis and proof. And most of the verses that talk about God in the Qur'an are like this. He wants to enlighten the human heart and his inside with this illumination and He is sure that if this heart is enlightened, it will understand God. A human being will sense God within his conscience or heart. In Surah Ya Seen, which is one of the most famous and important surahs of our Qur’an, from the beginning to the end, the greatest philosophies of creation and knowing God are mentioned in this surah. Pay attention that everywhere the Qur'an mentions God in clear and with clear examples. It is with the nature that He wants this person to understand these facts with his conscience. He talks about nature, about light, about stars, about seminal fluid, about trees, about all these things that are available to a person and we deal with them every day, and these verses of God bring to life in the mind of a person: ‘O man, look and observe, pay attention, see how the day and night pass. Observe the order and discipline of the world’ because it is certain that if someone observes this order and discipline and these signs of God in nature, he will realize His existence. One of my friends has written question to me and he has a question which is ‘I pray my prayers and also believe in God but in the depth of my heart, there is uneasiness, there is some kind of doubt and denial. I want this doubt and denial to disappear’. All my speech is on the same method that those who want to prove God through science and philosophy, may prove God through science and logic (although they cannot, but even if they can) there will be doubt in your heart. Unless this human nature is awakened and with the ability of illumination and inspiration and what I explained to you in the third part of lecture last night, it will understand this truth with his heart, through his inherent nature. It is there that doubt and denial will disappear and real faith will arise. There are many verses in Surah Ya Seen including: ‘And a sign to them is the dead earth: We give life to it and bring forth 47

Human Being and God from it grain so they eat of it.’7 (these are the verses that I recite them at the moment.) The great God left one of the signs of a seed and gave life to this seed and from inside He created the things that you eat, means human being eats it. ‘And We make therein gardens of palms and grapevines and We make springs to flow forth in it, That they may eat of the fruit thereof, and their hands did not make it; will they not then be grateful? Glory be to Him Who created pairs of all things, of what the earth grows, and of their kind and of what they do not know. And a sign to them is the night: We draw forth from it the day, then lo! they are in the dark; And the sun runs on to a term appointed for it; that is the ordinance of the Mighty, the Knowing. And (as for) the moon, We have ordained for it stages till it becomes again as an old dry palm branch. Neither is it allowable to the sun that it should overtake the moon, nor can the night outstrip the day; and all float on in a sphere.’8 All these are the examples and illustrations that the Qur'an shows from the earth and the sky, the prophecies, the sperm and the different things in front of the human heart as divine signs so that this human conscience will wake up and see these divine signs. These divine signs are mentioned in many of these verses. Then, at the end of the surah, He says: ‘Does not man see that We created him from a drop of [seminal] fluid, and, behold, he is an open contender!? He draws comparisons for Us, and forgets his own creation. He says, ‘Who shall revive the bones when they have decayed?’9. There is a story about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that an unbeliever comes running to him and asks him about the resurrection of the dead. He squeezes the bones of the cemetery in his hand and turns them into ashes, and throws the bones into the air and says: ‘Who shall revive the bones when they have decayed?’ and the almighty God answered him: ‘Say, ‘He will revive them who brought them the first time, and He has knowledge of all creation.’10 In the Arabic language, there

Holy Qur’an, 36:33 Holy Qur’an, 36:34-40 9 Holy Qur’an, 36:77-78 10 Holy Qur’an, 36:79 7 8

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Second Lecture are two words, one is creation11 and the other is composing12. Composing means bringing something from nothing to existence. God created something that did not exist. As you know, in the works we do, in the creation we do, it mostly involves change of shape or physical characteristics. For example, we take the wood from the tree and we make a table and a chair out of the tree, this is a creation from one state to another, but it is God who made this wood and this tree, out of nothing. ‘Say, ‘He will revive them who brought them the first time’ means ‘the first time’ He composed for the first time out of nothing. ‘And He is cognizant of all creation.’13 God, who created existence from nothing, is certainly absolutely knowledgeable, He is able to do it (again). ‘He, who made for you fire out of the green tree, and, behold, you light fire from it!’14 (because you know that the tree has water in it, it has greenery in it, and water and green are opposite to this, but God from this same tree that was created from water and is green) brings out fire. ‘He, who made for you fire out of the green tree, and, behold, you light fire from it!’. You produce fire from this tree, you lit fire from it. ‘Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Yes indeed! He is the All-creator, the All-knowing.’15 Look here, He is asking again, He explains them, that God who made these from nonexistent, God who did this, God who did that, it is God who put fire in this green and watery tree for you, is such a God not capable of creating another thing like this powdered bone? That is, when He puts these arguments behind each other and then raises this question, surely a clear human conscience will accept it. God who made the non-existent, existent, and created this Universe out of non-existence and is powerful enough to change 11 12

‫خلق‬ ‫انشاء‬

Holy Qur’an, 36:79 Holy Qur’an, 36:80 15 Holy Qur’an, 36:81 13 14

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Human Being and God its shape. ‘Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them?’ and Qur’an itself answers. Yes, God is able ‘He is the All-creator, the All-knowing.’16 And he is the creator of knowledge. ‘All His command, when He wills something, is to say to it ‘Be,’ and ‘It is’.’17 This is God whose command when he wills something, he wants something when he says ‘be’ with it, ‘it will be done immediately’ means there is no time gap between his command and creation. His order is selfcreation, when he orders “do it” immediately ‘it exists’, that's how God is. ‘So immaculate is He in whose hand is the dominion of all things, and to whom you shall be brought back.’18 Therefore, what I want to explain to you, especially in these famous verses of Surah Ya Seen and all of the Qur'an, is that it shows us the creation, the existence, the sperm and everything. This system of questioning and this technique to awaken the conscience and the inside of a person can be clearly seen in Surah Ya Seen. I hope that our friends will pay attention to this Qur’anic technique, that the Holy Qur’an also tries to awaken this human nature and this nature is based on the same philosophy that we stated. This heart will come to know God with its own inner radiance and illumination, and it is this recognition that leads a person to faith with all his existence. Therefore, the second part of our speech was about knowing God through the Qur’an, which I said very concisely and practically because I felt that our friends are involved in this matter. Two thirds of verses of Qur’an are related to the existence of God and all these verses of Qur’an have systematically used the same style that I have explained. Neither does it enter into science, nor into philosophy, logic, and mathematics, but it tries to awaken a person's conscience in such a way that he ‘understands’ God with his inner radiance and illumination. But this question that our friend wrote to me compels me to explain a little more about this: ‘So how come some people doubt the Holy Qur’an, 36:81 Holy Qur’an, 36:82 18 Holy Qur’an, 36:83 16 17

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Second Lecture existence of God, they don't feel God, they don't understand God. If God is so clear and obvious and Glorious Qur’an speaks so clearly about God, then why don't some people understand God and they fall into doubts?’ I want to give an example and based on this very simple and clear example, I will express my view. You imagine a fish swimming in the water. After a period of time, this fish will not feel the presence of water anymore. Or a bird flying in the air will not feel the presence of air. If a fish is pulled out of the water and then put back into the water, it will feel the presence of water. But our innate nature is such that we cannot consider a place without the existence of God, and no one can experience this existence without God. Therefore, God has always existed and everywhere, and just like a fish in water, a bird in the air, the presence of water or air has become normal for them. You imagine that if someone comes and hits a solid hammer or makes an explosion in a corner, everyone will notice it, everyone will pay attention to the direction of sound and understand that there is an explosion but if you have a motor that rotates uniformly and the sound of the engine will reach your ears uniformly, after the engine has been running for a while, after an hour or two, the sound of the engine becomes so normal that the person does not even feel the sound. It will become normal for him. Like a fish in water. This is the reason why we do not feel the existence of God. It has become normal for us and there is no way for us to compare and contrast a place with God and another place without God and to understand and measure the difference between the two. This is the scientific reason for the problem of doubt and denial that arises in some individuals’ hearts.

Definition of God! Following this topic, I want to tell my friends something that goes back to science and enters philosophy. This is the fact that our friends raise the first argument about God. The first thing they ask is the definition of God. What is God? Define God? As I explained to you, when you come across oxygen in science, they say what is oxygen? Define oxygen? You come and put some 51

Human Being and God oxygen in the test tube and measure the properties of this oxygen. You light it, this oxygen burns and so you explain the properties of this substance to your friends. You compare oxygen with hydrogen, for example, these are of two different natures and have different properties. But is it possible to give a definition about God? Is it possible to define God? In order for me to introduce my God to you, can I define him? When I want to introduce this oxygen or hydrogen to you, I define it. If I introduce oxygen or hydrogen to you, I will define it. When I want to describe this table to you, I will describe the dimensions of the table, the height of the table, the depth of the table, the color of the table, and you will understand the characteristics of the table. But am I able to define God? Is it possible to know God? Principally, in philosophy, defining an object equals to limiting it. When someone wants to define something, that means he wants to limit it. The same table that I am giving you as an example here and I want to define this table, I say that it is a one and half meters by two meters, that is, it is not three meters, it is two meters, and the width of the table is one meter and half. When I say that the color of this table is yellow, it means that there is no other color. To define means to limit something, and so when we define something, we have limited it. But is it possible to define the infinite God? Can the infinite God be limited? Because God has no limits. He is infinite. He has infinite dimensions, and every dimension of God is also infinite. Therefore, because it is impossible to limit God, it is not practical, so God cannot be defined. Therefore, in the vision that we have cultivated in our mind for oxygen or hydrogen or table, a physical body like this, it is not practical to apply for God. Because these kinds of definitions are not true for God and this is why we say that knowing God must be done through illumination and inspiration, not through these scientific, physical, and logical definitions. I don't mind here to mention to you one of the subtleties of Iranian philosophy, and this is from Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, a great philosopher and mystic who truly makes us proud. And in 52

Second Lecture the same topic that was discussed just now, this great man with very short and deep stories describes these philosophical concepts and their basis. Remember the story of the elephant19, which says: There is a dark place where an elephant is placed inside this room, and then people are brought into the room. And they ask one of them to come out and describe the elephant. One of the people who enters the room comes blind in the darkness and his hand hits the foot of the elephant. He sees that it is a huge pillar that does not move. He comes out and says that the elephant is like a huge pillar. Another one comes and touches the elephant's trunk and says that elephant is like a long pipe that has two holes instead of one. Someone enters and touches the elephant's ear, which is shaped like a big fan. He comes out and says that the elephant is like a big fan. Another one comes under the elephant's belly and says that an elephant is a strong arch. Rumi wants to say that these people want to define the elephant in this darkness of ignorance and they are not able to do so. Why can't they? Because their knowledge has not surrounded this elephant (which I will explain to you now). Everyone with their imperfect knowledge tries to define the elephant and it is possible that they tell part of the truth, but it is certainly not an elephant. An elephant is something else, elephant is another reality, because in order for someone to be able to define something, he must have complete grasp of it and have control over it by his knowledge. But how does man can define God? The limited man and the infinite God. This limited person cannot control the infinite, so he is not able to understand and touch the infinite. Therefore, whatever he recognizes and perceives about God is an incomplete understanding. It will never be perfect. What I am saying to you right now is a big and famous debate on the issue of knowledge between God worshipers and materialists. Materialists believe that everything is born from the mind,

Mentioned in Story 5, Book 3, p. 181 of the Mathnawi. Translated by E.H. Whinfield, Murine Publications LLC, 2019. 19

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Human Being and God thinking and brain and therefore they believe that God is born from the same human mind. But (this is a very important discussion) we say that what these people know and understand about God is not God. Why? Because what I think is a creation of my mind, and I know that this mind of mine is God's creation, that is, there is a God who created me, and this brain of mine, God also created this mind of mine. Therefore, we can see that these thoughts of mine, my thoughts about God are the second or third degree creation of God. Therefore, it cannot be God. The second-order creature cannot be the first creator. This is clear. It is God who created this mind, and this mind also created images. Certainly, these ideas, that are second-rate creations of God, cannot be like God. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that what we humans think about God and what we create in our imaginations is certainly not God just like humans who entered a dark room and everyone understood one part of an elephant, and so their evidence was not an elephant. There is another beautiful story that Rumi mentions in this regard and it is interesting and instructive, and that is the story of Hazrat Musa (as) (Moses) and the shepherd.20 There was a shepherd in the desert who was in secret personal communication with his God. He used to say, ‘O great God, my heart is missing you, come to me and I will sacrifice one of my best lambs for you. I will prepare for you from the best milk products, from the best products of this herd. When you are tired, put your head on my feet and rest, and if a wolf attacks you, I will beat the wolf with this stick and protect you.’ He used to pray to his God like this. Hazrat Musa (as), who was passing by, heard these words of the shepherd and was very upset. ‘What do you think about the great God, you ignorant man? That is, how low and insignificant are these ideas about God in these imaginations and thoughts of yours. God doesn’t need meat and yogurt and does not fear wolves or doesn’t need to take rest.’ He shouted at

Mentioned in Story 7, Book 2, p. 121 of the Mathnawi. Translated by E.H. Whinfield, Murine Publications LLC, 2019. 20

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Second Lecture this shepherd so much that this unfortunate shepherd left all the flock and went crying and wailing. When Hazrat Musa (as) went to Mount Tur21 to pray, he received a divine call from the great God that if you do not go and find this shepherd and do not apologize to him, you will be removed from the position of prophethood. Then Rumi says the same philosophical truth that I told you, that I am presenting it to you in today's mathematical language, which is much clearer and obvious. Suppose that God is infinitely great (I apologize for expressing this in mathematical terms) and the shepherd's knowledge is a very small number. Suppose the number is five. If we want to define knowledge with a number, God's existence is infinite, and suppose this shepherd's knowledge of God is five. As you know in mathematics, any number that is divided by infinity is zero. That is, in relation to God's knowledge, in relation to the existence of God, any knowledge that these people have is equal to zero, just like the ratio of any number to infinity. Then Rumi calls out to Hazrat Musa (as): ‘O Musa, how much is your knowledge? You are very proud, you took yourself very high.’ Now let's suppose that instead of five, your knowledge is five thousand, five million or any other big number. If we divide this big number or any number like five thousand or any other big number by the existence of God, which is infinite, the result will still be zero.22 Maulana wants to say, O Musa, you are almost ignorant of the knowledge of God of this unfortunate shepherd and you who are his prophet, both of you are counted as zero. So don't be proud and go to this shepherd! find him and apologize to him. Therefore, as you can see, our knowledge and our senses that the result of these is the knowledge of Physics and Chemistry and limited specifics, are all limited and cannot understand and perceive God, who is infinite. Therefore, whatever knowledge we have and whatever gnosis we acquire about God, Who is infinite, their ratio compared to God will be zero. Even the creations and

21 22

Mount Sinai, located in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. N/ꝏ = 0. where N= any number. (ꝏ = infinity)

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Human Being and God works of great philosophers, great scholars and great scientists, Aristotle23, Plato24, etc. are zero in relation to God. Except for those whose knowledge and gnosis has come through illumination, inspiration, or through revelation which is another matter where it becomes a spirit to spirit ratio. However, whatever and how much hard we try to estimate through our knowledge about God, the ratio of all the numbers and values will be zero compared to God. Based on this, a finite body cannot take under its control, define, understand and explain to others the infinite God. This is one of the big problems for those who doubt the existence of God. Because they want to understand God with these ‘scientific tools’ with the senses that are under their control, and this is not practical.

Limitation of five senses Now that we have reached here, it will not be appropriate that I finish this discussion here. I want to add a further explanation to the last night's discussion that I forgot, and which is that this body, the body you see, uses all senses to know itself and its nature uses five senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Therefore, the knowledge of this body is done by the five senses, and the result of these five senses are our experimental sciences. Physics, chemistry, physiology, biology, and everything that is taught in nature in these institutions is the result of the experiences of five senses. Therefore, the result of this are the experimental sciences or material sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, etc. All these are the result of our five senses. Similarly, you know that these five senses of ours are limited senses in terms of their capabilities. What I mentioned from Maulana Rumi and the stories of elephant and shepherd, have illustrated this fact. However, now I will discuss it from 23

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects including natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. 24 Plato (424-348 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Plato founded the Academy to teach philosophy and Aristotle was his famous student.

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Second Lecture philosophical point of view that these five senses are limited senses. These senses were not created for us to understand all the truth of existence. Among the greatest philosophers who are right about this, one is Berkeley25, one is Hume26, and the other is Kant27. These are the great European philosophers who lived in the last two centuries and told stories about this. Very beautiful stories have proven that our fifth senses are not enough to perceive and understand the truth and realities. I will give you one or two examples that will clarify this issue. One of the parables used by Berkeley and Hume is about light. Light, as you know, is made of electromagnetic waves according to modern physics. Electromagnetic waves create light, anyway these are waves and their result is the colorful world that we see in nature. Red, green, black, white, and various other colors that appear around us. Then, this philosopher asks if this brown color that we see in nature really exists or not? In fact, there is no such color. There is a light that came from this brown wood towards my eyes and this light has a special wavelength, it has a special frequency and it is my eye that sees this as brown color. This red color that exists in nature has a slightly shorter wavelength or is more effective, and it is my eye that sees it as red. Or suppose yellow or purple or other colors. The difference is only in the wavelength or frequency that these lights send to our eyes. Therefore, when we study about these colors, we see the wavelengths that reach our eyes, and it is our eyes that see them in these colors. There is no color in nature, what really exists is the frequency and the wavelength and that's it. Therefore, all the colors you see in nature are created by our mind and they have

25

George Berkeley (1685-1753) was an Anglo-Irish philosopher for theory of ‘immaterialism’ (subjective idealism). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. 26 David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist, best known his system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. 27 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy.

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Human Being and God no external reality. I will mention another example for you, which is useful and instructive, and that is fire. Suppose there is a fire here and we put our hand close to the fire, our hand burns, but does the burning exist in nature? What does it mean? What exists in nature and as a manifestation of fire is the rapid movement of air molecules. Due to the presence of fire, these air molecules move quickly. When I bring my hand close to it, these air molecules, which move quickly, strike rapidly the nerves of my hand, and these rapid strikings on the nerves of my hand cause a feeling of heat. Therefore, we can see that when I bring my body close to the fire, I don't feel it’s reality, which is the rapid movement of molecules, and I don't understand it. What I understand are the rapid impulses in my nerves, which the brain senses as heat. Therefore, philosophers say that these five senses of ours are not made to find out the truth, they are made for us to distinguish the concrete road from the well. In order for us not to burn ourselves, not to harm ourselves.

Thinking and reasoning -The originality of the mind Therefore, according to the definition that I gave you and I will briefly go over, this first part that deals with the five senses is the part that is not able to bring us to the truth, it only wants to distinguish the way from the well28 for us, and as you know, there are many errors in it and they are likely to occur. The second part is reasoning and thinking. The result of this thought are the fields of philosophy, logic and mathematics. Philosophy, logic and mathematics are the result of human thought and reasoning. And this second stage is a stage higher than the first stage which is experimental sciences. The first part are the sciences related to our five senses. But the second part is related our intellect, our thinking which result in the sciences of philosophy, logic and mathematics. And I want to mention its difference to you, what a big difference it has with the first part. You all went to school and 28

Means that a safe road or way where one can travel safely without harm and the well or a big hole in which one can fell and get harmed or injured.

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Second Lecture at least you learned geometry. You recall Euclid’s geometry. Euclid29 was the famous scientist of ancient Greece, who founded this Euclidean geometry so that he could measure the distance between the earth, the sun, the moon, and other things, and he discovered 32 theorems for this geometry, he created 32 theorems. In different situations, for example, the sum of the angles of right angled triangle will be 180 degrees. If we have a triangle, the sum of the angles of the triangle alpha, beta and gamma is always 180 degrees. Since the time of Euclid, which has been more than two thousand five hundred years, until today, this Euclid's theorem, which says that the sum of the angles of right angled triangle is 180 degrees, remains as strong as it is. While in the first part, which was experimental sciences, you can see that every day there is a change. There is not a day that physics does not change. There is not a day that chemistry does not evolve to be better. While in the section of reason and logic, you can see what Euclid left more than two thousand years ago, it remains the same. Why? Because the foundation of his thinking was based on the intellect and logic, not on the senses, and that is what is transitory, is changing and transforming is our senses, not our intellect, nor our thoughts. It means that what is built with logic does not change with the change of times. Therefore, we see that Aristotle has established principles for logic. For example, one of his principles says that the sum of opposites is impossible. Two opposites cannot be added together, i.e. one can be both white and black at the same time, they cannot be added. These are logical laws that are based on reason, so we can see that Aristotle's logic from two thousand and five hundred years ago remains as powerful as it is today. We can see that this second part, which is intellect, logic and thought, has come a step ahead of the first part that was senses, and which does not change with the changes of time. But I know 29

Euclid (330-270 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician and expert in geometry, considered to be the father of geometry with his famous geometrical theorems. Euclidian geometry largely dominated the field until the early 19th century.

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Human Being and God that some of you, some of those who are involved in philosophy, have some problems in their minds and this second part that I explained to you, in philosophy they call them those who practice reasoning as or ‘Reasoners’ or the those believe in logical discussion, or in France they call resonalizem and Descartes30, the great philosopher of France was the pioneer of these philosophers who believed in reasoning. He was the one who came to the conclusion that our senses and our empirical sciences are not enough to understand the truth, and therefore he denies everything in order to reach the truth. He says that by all means, I deny the existence of everything and do not accept anything, and then when he thinks to himself, he says, ‘I think therefore I am.’ Because I am thinking so I am. That is, he gives originality to thought and to reason. He said that as I am thinking and I reject and trample everything this is because he gives fundamental place to reason, so that’s why he says I am what I am reasoning. Therefore, from here, he concludes his own existence and after concluding his own existence, he starts to advance and reach and prove God. He goes and proves God in his own way, which is not logical in my opinion, and now I reject this argument in two or three words. But the fact is that this series of great philosophers call themselves ‘Reasoners’ and possessors of intellect and reasoning and the great philosopher Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, who was mentioned, says how sweetly about these reasoners: The foot of reasoners was wooden, the foot of hard wood was saltless31 That is, Maulana Rumi understood these words. He understood these arguments and words of logic well and when he comes across these people of intellect and reasoning, he expresses this very beautiful poem in rejecting them. The foot of reasoners was wooden, 30

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. He was pioneer in the emergence of modern philosophy and science and Rationalism and Cartesianism. 31 Means that the very basis of arguments, reasons and proofs of those who call themselves logical thinkers or reasoners is very fragile and can break easily.

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Second Lecture the foot of hard wood was saltless Now that we have come to poems and poetry, let's talk about Hafiz32, who is also a mystic in his own right, and read a poem by him that says: The reasoners are the full center of existence, but love knows that they wander in this circle That is, if we consider this circle of existence, these wise men are the full at center of existence. It is true that all life revolves around the field. But after all these words in the circle of love, love means the same spirit, means the same illumination, the same third part that we discussed, these wise people are wandering, they don't understand anything, they are lost, they are blind. The reasoners are the full center of existence, but love knows that they wander in this circle So we see that our philosophy, our Islamic philosophy from the time of Rumi, who passed away thousand years ago, since that time, rejects these philosophers with such clarity and very strongly. I want to say something else about Professor Shaheed Mutahhari. The best book of Mutahhari that he wrote (in this regard) or to say has interpreted is the book written by the late Allameh Tabatabaei33 and he wrote a commentary on this book that the commentary of Shaheed Mutahhari are also very valuable and the name of this book is Realism or The Philosophy of Realization which if there is a chance maybe tomorrow in I will mention the reason in the discussion about philosophy. There, Shaheed Mutahhari says this about the same Descartes, meaning the intellectualism and thinking of Europe. Please pay attention to 32

Khwaje Shamsuddin Mohammad Hafize-e Shirazi (1325–1390) or Hafiz was an Iranian mystic and poet. Famous for collection of his mystical poetry Diwane Hafiz. 33 Sayyid Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaei (1904-1981) was a world famous Iranian scholar, philosopher and one of the most prominent thinkers of modern Shia Islam. He is famous for his voluminous exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, Tafsir al-Mizan.

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Human Being and God this topic, it is one of the most beautiful anecdotes of philosophy that you can see how forcefully and beautifully an Islamic thinker of ours brings up the problems of these European philosophers and brings them to their knees. When Shaheed Mutahhari addresses Descartes, he tells him that ‘Mr. Descartes, you just came and sat down and denied everything that exists. You said that there is nothing in this world. You basically denied existence of everything, earth, skies, etc. and then you say I am thinking, I am thinking, so I am.’ Shaheed Mutahhari says right here that ‘When you say I think therefore I am, you have established a logical relationship. From where did you get this logical relationship? If you rejected everything in the universe, you have no right to accept this logic.’ If someone wants to deny the world, is it right to come and accept Dialectic? Or accept Aristotle's logic? This is against reason. He says that ‘If you rejected this, you don't have the right to bring arguments and conclude and say that I think therefore I am. Therefore, Mr. Descartes, this shows that in your own conscience and mind, ideas and unfounded views have been placed that you accept these presumptions whether you want to or not and you yourself do not know that you have accepted them. That is, there are things inside your mind that you are not even aware of and you make judgments based on these presumed, unfounded ideas. But if you want to free yourself from these presumptions and unfounded views or beliefs and things, you will not be able to reach the reality that exists in nature in any way, it’s impossible for you.’ It is so beautiful and very delicate and gentle! May God have mercy on this martyred scholar! Now that I am speaking about this second part, I want to bring a very decisive scientific reason, which is again very instructive in rejecting this part. Of course, when we say rejecting the second part, it doesn't mean that we don't accept reason, philosophy and thought, and as we rejected the first part, we don't mean to reject experimental sciences, physics, and chemistry, but we say that everything has 62

Second Lecture its own limitations. There is a limit to everything. Every scientific field has its own special realm, you cannot go beyond this special realm. You cannot expect above this specific limitation from these sciences. But in the second part. As I said, in mathematics, we had a geometry called ‘Euclidean geometry’ which Euclid lived in Alexandria in ancient times and founded 32 famous theorems of geometry. You know that the foundation of Euclid's geometry is based on one principle. That principle says that if you have a line ‘delta line’ and a point such as point A, from the point A that is outside the delta line, only one line can be drawn parallel to the delta line, only one line. A

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Euclid established the theorem based on this principle, and when (pay attention here) we accept the Euclid principle, these 32 theorems will be correct and unchangeable forever. Therefore, Euclid has built his list of geometrical problems based on one principle. The Postulates of Euclid that from one point only one line can be drawn parallel to another line and so on. But I ask (I ask like Mutahhari) that Mr. Euclid, how did you know that from this point only one line can be drawn parallel to another line? He will be unable to prove. There is no logical reason that only one parallel line can be drawn from this point. The only way this person can say is ‘I see it in nature’. I feel that when I look at these bricks, I see that only one line has been drawn from one point and another line has been drawn parallel to is, in order for Euclid to reach the principle that I have stated, he has returned to his physical senses. It means that all the relations and rules that he establishes later are rational and unchangeable, but its basic principle is based on observation through senses, as we can say, he develops a sense of change and evolution within himself. The physical sense makes mistakes. The physical senses evolve to perfection with physics and 63

Human Being and God chemistry. We can see that in this century, a great German mathematician named Riemann34 says that I don't accept Euclid’s principle. Why? Because he expands his environment from a small room and parallel lines of limited bricks and considers whole sphere of the earth. He says, ‘Consider this big globe, the view of these lines, that is, these lines that are parallel to each other now, and these orbits of the Earth are parallel to each other at the equator, but when they reach the poles, they intersect each other.’ Therefore, you cannot draw a parallel line from one point to another line that never intersects it (because the earth is spherical, the earth is not flat). On this spherical earth, any line you draw parallel to another line will certainly intersect the first line at another point. Therefore, Mr. Riemann comes and rejects Euclid's philosophy and says that it is necessary for us to consider the globe and in this globe, which has the equator, to consider these different orbits and the triangle that Mr. Euclid had built on the small earth, let us build it on the Earth and you can see that if you draw a triangle like this on the surface of the Earth, it has alpha, beta and gamma angles, the set of these angles is more than 180 degrees.

Mr. Riemann brought another principle that a line cannot be drawn from one point parallel to another line, and you can see that he creates 32 new theorems, some of which are different from Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826 -1886) German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. His works opened up research areas combining analysis with geometry leading to the theories of Riemannian geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex manifold theory. 34

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Second Lecture Euclid's theorems. Here (Euclid's geometry) it says that ‘the set of angles is 180 degrees’ and there (Riemann's geometry) it says that ‘the sum of these angles is more than 180 degrees’, and all the other issues it brings forth are completely different from Euclid's principles. Then, another philosopher, a Russian named Lobachevsky35 came with his idea. Lobachevsky says that now that it happened and Mr. Rieman came and said that a line parallel to another line cannot be drawn from one point. I will go to the pole. I will sit on the pole and say that all the lines you draw will be parallel to each other. Therefore, Lobachevsky says that from one point, another parallel line can be drawn infinitely, and he creates another new geometry, which will be 32 new theorems very similar to Euclid's and Riemann's theorems. In the case of Lobachevsky, which was not taught in some schools in our time, geometry is concave geometry. Riemannian geometry is convex geometry. They are measured on a convex sphere. Lobachevsky geometry is a concave geometry, in which the sum of the angles of a triangle is less than 180 degrees on a concave surface. That is, it’s equivalent and will be like this36, and therefore the sum of these three angles will be less than 180 degrees. Therefore, this intellect, thinking, reasoning, mathematics, logic, and philosophy still have a principle and that principle goes back to our feelings, our five senses, that can change and modify. Therefore, ‘the house is destroyed from its foundation’37. When the foundation is destroyed, the whole house will also be destroyed. Therefore, as long as the principle is correct, the geometry is also correct. The theorems are also correct. But when the principle is distorted, all the cases based on that principle are destroyed. And this is a controversy that exists in the modern sciences and physics in our world. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792 -1856) Russian mathematician and geometer, known for hyperbolic geometry also known as Lobachevskian geometry. 36 Please see the figure on previous page. 37 Means logic, reasoning, intellect, philosophy and like. 35

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Human Being and God Of course, we don't say that Euclidean geometry doesn't work. Euclidean geometry is correct for a limited and small earth. But when they start moving with rockets and satellites, and in large dimensions with the law of relativity of Einstein, there the space is convex and Riemannian physics is used and not Euclidian. Therefore, each of them has a territory and is considered correct in a certain territory. So we come to this conclusion, and I explained to you from the point of view of mathematics that what Maulana Rumi said thousand years ago: The foot of reasoners was wooden, the foot of hard wood was saltless. That is to say, we see that the feet of the people of philosophy, reasoning and thinking, who sometimes claim a lot, that is, they say that all existence was created by reason and intellect, is also lame.

Illumination and Spirit This is here that we reach the third part, where the issue of illumination and spirit comes in. That this, third part has nothing to do with human feelings or human intellect or reason. Even though feelings and intellectual reasoning provide the environment for understanding and accepting, but real knowledge (or gnosis) comes through the heart, by the spirit, and by the illumination. And this is a heartfelt and direct relationship with the ultimate truth or with God which I explained last night and our talk last night was about it. Tonight, I would like to discuss this more from the point of view of mathematics and from the point of view of science. As we said before, we do not reject scientific experiments, but we say that instead of trying to experience with these five senses or with this intellect and reasoning, there is another experimental way, which is the way of experience by heart, which is illumination, and through illumination, a person will be able to directly understand and immediately perceive truth or ultimate reality. All the verses of Qur'an from Surah Ya Seen, that I recited to you were in relation to the fact that this power of illumination becomes alive within a person so that the person with the power of this illumination can 66

Second Lecture sense, can perceive God, the spirit and the unseen world. As I said, these are the best ways, the most correct ways, and if someone tries to prove the existence of God with the power of experimental sciences, logic and philosophy, they will go astray. Again, I'm not saying that you should trample on science. I myself have spoken more scientifically to prove God than probably anyone else, and I am still speaking, but if we investigate the possibility of God's existence through scientific means, we will not make God's existence a reality. It is impossible to understand God or feel God through reason or five senses. The only way that exists is the human heart and illumination and inspiration. The Great God also uses the same technique in the education and guidance of Muslims.

Now that we have reached here, I want to explain a case for you, which is a very interesting case, and that is that there is a big controversy and controversy between us the believers or worshippers of God and materialists, which is related to existence of God. You know that materialists or the new Marxists called themselves Scientific Socialists and claim that they think scientifically and Marx38 believes that those socialists who came 38

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for Das Kapital (1867–1894) which is his theory of historical materialism and critical analysis of capitalism, representing his

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Human Being and God before him were all imaginary thinkers and spoke based on their own mentalities. And he claims to be scientific and whatever he says is based on science. You have met these Marxist people in schools, universities, and other places, and you hear that they say we think scientifically, we prove everything with science and logic, and if something is not accepted by science, we do not accept it. Therefore, when they set the standard of science, they oblige you to accept their works of philosophy, and if you don't accept it, you are labelled as a ‘Reactionary’, that is, you are not scientific. This is a propaganda slogan that Marxists use strongly and powerfully, and even try to find believers in God and say that you are imaginary, you are mind-oriented, you are illogical, you believe in the supernatural, and that they are the only ones who think scientifically.

The originality of matter At the very beginning of the discussion, when they call themselves scientists, I want to make it clear that they do not think scientifically, either they are lying or they do not understand. They neither understand the meaning of science nor the meaning of philosophy!! The first word that Marxists or materialists say is about existence, and in this regard they say: ‘There is matter in this world and nothing else. All existence in this world is the same matter and nothing else.’ This is the basis of materialistic philosophy that we call the originality of matter. In other words, Marxists and materialists claim that all the existence in this world is made of matter and nothing else. They insist on nothing else. When they say non-matter means other than matter, it is not spiritual, not divine, not supernatural, not metaphysical, not an occult world. Therefore, you notice that according to this philosophy (if it is correct) there is no spirit or God and the case is over. Because they say we think scientifically, so they claim to prove their philosophy with science. Therefore, they say that we have proven with science that there is no God. And with this tactic, with this means, with this stick, they beat greatest intellectual achievement collectively known as Marxism.

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Second Lecture the believers or worshippers of God, and say that they are reactionary and idealistic. But what I want to tell you right now is that whether science, the same science that deals with our five senses, where has it reached in this world of existence? What we can say is that science has found this matter, it has discovered this matter, it has analyzed this matter, and we do not want to say that the matter does not exist, this matter exists and it is correct. But when they come and say ‘otherwise nothing’, we ask them ‘Has the science said ‘otherwise nothing’ or do you add it yourself?’ Those who deal with science know very well that science only rules about the positive (provable) things, it rules about the positives, not the negatives (possible). That is, science says, ‘We have reached here, I know this thing’ but beyond this thing, it does not enter into what it does not know and does not discuss it. Science discusses the things that it has reached, discovered, found and understood, but it does not rule on other things that it has not reached and understood, neither negatively nor affirmatively.

Science and philosophy This is where I would like to explain to you this difference between science and philosophy by dividing science and philosophy from the perspective of Bertrand Russell39, a philosopher who died a few years ago. His definition is a concise, useful and interesting definition. He says: ‘Human knowledge starts from zero to a specific point’ and this is the limit of science. Science has discovered from zero to this point. Like oxygen, hydrogen, physics, chemistry, other things, science has discovered and reached here. At this point, when science stops and does not understand beyond that, people put forth different opinions and theories, and each one goes on a different path. You see, every philosopher or every scholar goes a different way himself. From this range of science up is called the range of philosophy, meaning from here on up is Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872–1970) was British mathematician, philosopher and logician. He won Nobel Prize in literature in 1950. 39

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Human Being and God the range of philosophy. In other words, as far as the science has progressed from zero to this point, all people share and agree upon this knowledge. In Soviet Russia and in America, they have a common theory in relation to oxygen and hydrogen. Why? Because you can test this hydrogen and oxygen in a test tube, and if someone doesn't accept it, you say, ‘Come see this in the laboratory and test it’ and he is forced to see it and accept it. Therefore, as long as science has progressed, there is no difference between the left and the right, everyone agrees. The difference starts from the point where science becomes lame and cannot go higher than that. Therefore, a school of thought emerges and says that there is no God. Another school says that there is God. One says that the supernatural or metaphysical is like that. These are the things that science has not reached and that is why it has entered the realm of philosophy. When they have entered the realm of philosophy, it means they are superior to science because if there was science, there would be no philosophy. If it was science, there would be a common view and everyone would agree. Therefore, if there is a difference, it means that they have left the realm of science and entered into the realm of philosophy. Therefore, a Marxist who says that there is matter in this world, and ‘otherwise nothing’, this phrase ‘otherwise nothing’ is a philosophical phrase expressed in the realm of philosophy. Just as another person who says that God exists is in the realm of philosophy, not in the realm of science. Therefore, from the point of view of science and from the point of view of philosophy, the one who says ‘otherwise nothing’ or the other who believes in the spirit and God are both the same. Because they are from the point of view of science and because science does not want to enter or has not entered or has not commented on this matter. Therefore, if someone comes and says that ‘my philosophy is scientific’, the very fact that he says ‘my philosophy is scientific’ means that he neither understands science nor philosophy. When he says that his philosophy says ‘the originality of matter’, it means that there is only matter and nothing else. This shows that he has gone astray and has not 70

Second Lecture understood the truth or reality. Therefore, from our point of view, where there is science, there is no difference of opinion. Let it be believer in God, let it be materialist, let it be imaginary, let it be existentialism, everyone agrees. But the difference between these schools starts from the point where the foundation of science is lame and everyone weaves philosophies with their theories and theories to discover the truths of this science, and philosophy actually means outside of science. Therefore, philosophy cannot be proved by science, and if the materialists say that they have proved their philosophy by science, they are wrong. I wanted to express other things to my friends, but now it is 12 o'clock and I feel that you are tired, especially the discussion, the scientific discussion is heavy and we have two or three more meetings. I think that we will continue this discussion about God for one more session, and our next discussion will be a comparative discussion between Islam, the two famous systems of the world, that are Capitalism and Communism, or Capitalism and Socialism, and I think that discussion will continue for two sessions. At the end of the session, we will answer the questions of friends. Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings

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Third Lecture

Third Lecture In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful What we have discussed so far has been about God, the Spirit, and the Unseen World, and we have shown that to know God, the scientific method that is based on the five senses, as well as the method of reason and logic, are not enough. And that which helps us to reach God is the heart and qalb (and fu’ad or af’ida)1 is a new source that we will be able to know God through inspiration and enlightenment. With some of the Qur’anic verses, we also showed that the Qur’an also presents such a system (or method) for knowing God. It never suggests only the logical, philosophical and rational way. I remember that in one of the demonstrations that took place in America after June 15, 1972, we walked from Baltimore to Washington. It was the time of presidency of Kennedy2, it was a fifty miles3 walk and we decided to do the fifty-mile walk. At the US White House also, these protests and marches continued for three days. On this way, most of our friends' feet got blisters and bled because it was a hard way, two nights and two days of walking, day and night, and most of the time, especially at night, when you couldn't cross the middle of the street or the highway, you had to move on the side of the highway, on stones and heaps of dust and mud. Very hard and rough. There was a young man with us who since many years ago, was one of those hardline, extremist and very vocal Marxist intellectuals and supporters. But on that last night with blistered feet, hungry, tired, on a moonlit night, in that silence, when the moon was slowly rising and lighting our way, this young man often walked with me and our discussion was about philosophy. In the morning, when we In Qur’an, two words qalb (‫ )قلب‬and fu’ad (‫ )فؤاد‬are used to describe heart (or seat of human thinking, cognition, ideas, feelings, emotions, etc.). Qalb is the logical aspect while fu’ad is the emotional aspect of heart. 2 John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. 3 Over 80 km. 1

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Human Being and God were talking about mysticism, it was about Rumi and Hafiz, it was about love and affection and things like that. After hours of discussion, I asked my Marxist friend, how can you explain this feeling that is going on in your heart right now with these Marxist theories of yours? He told me, ‘Please for God’s sake, don't let this luxury of mine expire and don’t ask me these questions.’ This is because Marxism and materialism are not able to justify this feeling and this inner mysticism and to understand that this is another world, it has no relationship with Marxists and this is another world, it has no relationship with Marxism at all and I also didn’t want to give him trouble, and didn’t want to take him out of that spiritual and spiritual state that I had given him. But it’s a fact of matter that Materialistic Philosophy is not at all able to understand and justify this inner feeling, inspiration, illumination, enlightenment and the gnostic knowledge. In fact it totally beyond their comprehension and understanding. It is another world. It seeks to fulfill the material needs of human being and that's it. But you know that in this life, if someone really wants to understand the meaning of life, eating and sleeping and living is not the goal of life. These are requirements for living a life. A person eats or wears clothes or sleeps in order to live, in order to worship God. The purpose of life is not to eat and sleep. These are the means of being alive. I can say that those moments can be considered real when a person gets out from this material life and from this muddy world and rises to spiritual journey. These moments in human life are very short, but what counts as life are only these moments and that's it. The rest of life is just a burden for this human being to stay alive, so that these moments of ascension and leaping of the spirit will reach him. And the person who reaches these states, this spiritual joy and spiritual journey and flight more often in his life, has a better life, and a more successful life. Those human beings who live their lives engrossed in material things and material needs, are devoid of spiritual pleasure and joy of spiritual journey. In fact, they are not human beings, they have not even smelled humanity. I told this story so that you know that no other schools of 76

Third Lecture thought are able to explain these spiritual journeys and this feeling of ascension and transcendence in the human spirit, except for the method (or style) that we mention and the school of thought that we belong to. Now that I was telling this story, I want to complete and say a few more words, and that is in the philosophy of Marxism, as you know, its purpose is that the classes in a society should be removed and water, bread and housing are provided for everyone. We assume that we have reached there. We assume that water, bread, and housing are guaranteed for everyone. We assume that classes have disappeared and economic inequality has disappeared. I ask them: ‘What is next? Will there be a movement and a movement and a feeling or a need after that? or not?’ Because as you know, they say that the motivation of man in this life struggle is class warfare. The day these classes are abolished, there will be no more class struggles. Will then the human being have no other motivation on that day? Will he be silent or static? You know that silence is equivalent to death. In that state, human being actually dies. The materialist school is not able to answer this big question of what will happen after the removal of other classes from a society. Will a human being die? or will continue to his movement? But as I said, from our point of view, life, water, and bread are means, and journey towards the great God is a movement that will continue to infinity, and human being will never stop moving towards perfection in any place and at any time. I am writing to you the verse that I recited to you earlier and I am writing it for you because of its great importance, because it is the basis of our philosophy: ‘And thus We have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people’4 means We have placed you as a middle Ummah so that you can be a witness to all people. Be witness. And it is from here that a new school is born that this school is called as the Moderate or Intermediate School. From Philosophical point of view, tonight I want to make a

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Qur’an, 2:143

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Human Being and God part of the comparison between our school of worshiping God and the two great schools of the world in the East and the West, that is, Communism and Capitalism, and describe the beautiful beauties of School of Islam.

Basic Principles of the Schools of Thought Before entering into this discussion, I want to say that every school of thought or system in the world has three aspects. There are three bases. The first one is the philosophical basis, the second is the economic basis, and the third is the political and governmental basis. The system and the ideology that does not have these three basic foundations is deficient and incomplete. When we say that an ideology is perfect, it means that it has viewpoints and opinions in at least these three bases and can answer these needs. Therefore, an ideology, a school of thought, will have a philosophical base, secondly, an economic base, and thirdly, a political or governmental base. I remember in America, one of our very Marxist and die hard friends criticized me and said why do you respect Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) so much. Why? He protested! I asked him, why do you believe so much in Marx? I seek protection from God!, I didn’t want to compare, but in his opinion, Marx was much higher. I said why do you respect Marx so much? He said that’s because Marx has an ideology, Marx is the one who brought ideology. I asked him, what does the ideology mean? The summary of the discussion that was raised there is that we consider an ideology complete when it has at least a philosophical foundation, an economic foundation, and a political foundation. I told him that it is very good that Marx has expressed such an ideology and presented such a foundation. Then I explained to him that our mission also has a philosophical vision in terms of its philosophical foundation, which is far superior and powerful than their Marxist philosophy and from the economic point of view, our school of thought has its own economic system, and from the political and governmental point of view, our school of thought has its own government and political system. Therefore, if we want to discuss based on 78

Third Lecture ideology, Islam is an ideology and a complete ideology. If someone wants to just say that Marxism is an ideology, then that ideology should be respected. Islam also has a complete ideology and it should be respected. He accepted the argument. However, the basis itself and the practical plan itself is another story. Anyway, in the process of this definition, I want to say that ideology should be considered at least from philosophical, economic, and political perspectives, and that ideology is superior one that has all these three perspectives at their best. Again, as an introduction, I would like to say that when we discuss a political or economic system, we can never consider and judge a part of the philosophical problem separately. All sets and all systems should be considered and studied together. For example, I would like to say that if some of the laws (for example, punishment) in Islamic jurisprudence were to be taken out of the Islamic system and then implemented in another system, it would be very strange and mismatch, it would be unacceptable. If some of the rules are from economics and for example usury, if you want to implement them in another system, it will be unreasonable. Therefore, when we discuss a political and economic matter, it should be considered in its complete form as a whole, otherwise it will be a mistake to study it separately. So when we discuss the Islamic ideology, especially when we discuss the economy, it will be based on the philosophy of godliness and monotheism. That is, if someone wants to implement the Islamic economy in other systems, it will certainly not succeed. Similarly the Islamic government. With this introduction, we enter the discussion and I want to present the discussion to you in this way that we consider the following three systems from the ideological point of view, about these three systems that currently dominate our world.

The existing schools of thought of the world One is the eastern system or Communist systems is currently ruling in Soviet Russia and China and their affiliated countries. The other one is the Capitalist system in the West, that has taken half of the world under its control. And the other school that we 79

Human Being and God believe in is Islam, which I want to say is the intermediate system between the two. When we discuss ideology, as I said, we should consider its philosophical point of view as a philosophical foundation. From the point of view of the philosophical foundation, we want to understand what position these three systems have and what opinion they present about the various issues and problems of life.

School of Communism The first and biggest issue that these systems are based on is the issue of God. From the point of view of the philosophical foundation of Communism, it is devoted to the material school ‘The School of the Originality of Matter’, which was also mentioned last night. The originality of matter means that there is only matter in this world and nothing else. That is, there is nothing but matter in this world, for which we call it Materialist School or Materialism. Materialist School or Materialism means that it is based on the originality of matter. The originality of the matter means that this material is the base of the world and that's all. It means that there is no reality other than this matter. That is, there is no spirit, no God, no supernatural, or metaphysical, and nothing else. Everything that exists is only this matter and that's it. As I explained to you, Communism and Marxism believe in Scientific Socialism. They believe that they think scientifically, and I showed you last night (at least for those who were there, and maybe there weren't some, and I want to repeat it briefly) that the Marxists' statement that there is ‘only matter in this world’ and nothing else, all other is unscientific. Because in the first part that there is only matter, in the physical and chemical experiments of nature, we say that we can find matter, but where it says ‘nothing else’, it is a problem that science has not reached yet and science is not able to make such a statement about it. The goal of science is not these negatives at all. Science only talks about the achievements it has discovered, it has definitely proved and it has found. It does not interfere with something that it has 80

Third Lecture not yet reached, discovered and understood. Therefore, when the materialist school says that there is matter in this world, this part is correct, but when it says ‘nothing else’, this is not correct. This is a philosophical doctrine that has come out of science and entered into the world of philosophy. As I told you, based on Bertrand Russell's definition of science and philosophy, he starts science from zero and takes up. That is, human knowledge, human science to this world and all this existence starts from zero and goes up until it reaches a point where the world of science stops. Until here, we call this the world of science. In this world of science, all human beings are in common position. That is, a communist, a capitalist and a Muslim think in the same way. When they discuss about oxygen or hydrogen, ‘all three schools have the same opinion’ because it is a scientific fact from scientific school of thought and you can prove it by scientific analysis in any laboratory. When we say that it is a scientific problem, if this problem can be experimented at any time, in any place, in any laboratory and by any person, then we say that this issue is a scientific problem. For example, the question of oxygen or hydrogen can be concluded at any time and in any country and by any Human Being and God and same results will be achieved. While there are some things that not everyone can experience. The spiritual and illuminative issues that I have explained to you are the issues that anyone cannot experience, or anyone who has experienced it once, can also have it second time and a third time. Because this is an issue that is related to the spiritual state of a person. Even those who have power in telepathy and their spiritual abilities are strong, sometimes they are able to communicate through it, sometimes they cannot. There was a person who was very strong in this ability (I am mentioning it as an example to clarify). He would stand right in front of camera and stare at it and his thoughts would be imprinted on the film of the camera. For example, he would take this camera and visualize a car in his mind, and then the image of the car would be reflected on the film. Above all, it was when the Americans wanted to know the 81

Human Being and God shape of the Russian rocket that the Russians built in 1963, and they pressured this man to come and describe this rocket to them. He sinks in his imagination and stares into the camera, and when his thoughts are reflected in the camera and they print it. They see the shape of the rocket and then after several years, when the Russians themselves publish the shape of the rocket, they found that this rocket is the same rocket that this man visualized years ago in his mind and through telepathy he was able to get the same shape. Therefore, there are those who have this power, but this is not always the case. This person was sometimes able to do this and other times he was not able to do it. It depends on the spiritual condition of the person. Therefore, we say that this is not part of science, this is parapsychology, it is beyond the science of psychology. But in the case of science, like oxygen and hydrogen, it is a matter that from zero to this point, where human science has reached, everyone is in agreement, and from this point onwards, disagreements begin. From this point onward, the world becomes philosophical, that in this world of philosophy, everyone chooses a way and a method based to their mental abilities and interests, and therefore different ways arise, and it is in these different ways that one claims that there is only matter in this world and nothing else. This is a theory, it is a theory which is a philosophical theory that science has not reached and is so far not able to reach it in any way. This materialistic human being and Marxism has entered the world of philosophy and in the world of philosophy he has accepted as his intellectual foundation that it is only matter and there is nothing beyond it, while another comes and chooses a new way and the third person chooses a third way. Therefore, we see that when Marxism comes and claims that there is matter in this world and nothing else, it shows that this expression of Marxism is not scientific, but philosophical expression. Because science never says otherwise or nothing else. Where when it says otherwise, it has made a philosophical statement. From a scientific point of view, it is as much out of science as someone else to come and focus on the mind and reject 82

Third Lecture the existence of matter. Based on this, the Philosophical basis of the School of Communism or Marxism or School of Materialism is on matter and originality of matter and denial of anything beyond matter.

School of Capitalism In the world of Capitalism, they value the originality of the idea or mind, which is called ‘idée’ in French. Therefore, a school is born that is named as school of thought of ‘Idealism’. I will explain to you what is meant by this idealism. In contrast to the materialist school, which believes that this world is filled with matter and nothing else, it goes to another opposite point and says that ‘I do not accept this matter at all.’ There is no world, there is nothing but my mind, except my thought, except the idea that is in my imagination that I pass in my mind and that's it. This is my mind, it is my idea that imagines these objects in the world. These objects by themselves are external things and are not real. That famous story of Plato who says that this world are shadows of the truth like a caravan that passes in front of a light and the shadow of this caravan is reflected on a wall and we see these shadows. These shadows are all mental, none of them have any reality. Plato believes that these truths have counterparts in another world, and they have truths that are called ideals. But in this material world of earth and water, only shadows of this model are reflected and we see it with our eyes. Therefore, none of these are real. Last night, in relation to this issue, I gave an example of the these idealists who are great philosophers, among them Hume, Berkeley, Kant are the most famous, and they are considered the great philosophers of this school of idealism that existed in Europe, in Germany, in France, and in England a few centuries ago. They had power and influence and believed that this world is nothing but the imagination of human mind. It is human mind that sees these facts like this. I gave the example of light, that light in nature is nothing but the waves that come from this light to my eyes, and it is my eye that sees one as red and the other as yellow. The only thing that is different between two different lights is 83

Human Being and God their frequency and their wavelength, but it is my eye that sees these different wavelengths in different ways. Therefore, if I am not there, there is no light in this world. If it is not my eyes, it will not recognize light. Light has no reality, it is my eye that gives reality to light. Similarly, I also gave you an example of heat or some other things mentioned by these philosophers. Therefore, this group believes that what is original in this world is the mind or idea. Therefore, their school is called ‘Idealism’ and great philosophers are also their supporters. We see that in our world there are two different ways of thinking in terms of the philosophical foundation, one of which is materialism, meaning the originality of matter, and the other is idealism, or the originality of the mind, of the ideas. The subject that I am explaining here is very important because Marxists always say that there are only two systems in nature: either materialism or idealism. If someone is not a materialist, he must be an idealist, and then they come and smear the school of idealism. They curse, beat and make fun of them. It is really difficult to reject this school from the scientific point of view. It is not an easy task because we in the world of philosophy cannot scientifically prove or deny anything. But they come with their own systems and methods and strike hard. The books that I remember reading during my childhood, one was written by Georges Politzer5, it is one of the greatest and most famous Marxist books that were taught in France. Tudeh party6 in Iran also used to teach this book and are still teaching it. I am so sorry and it is with a thousand regrets (I am emphasizing this from this Georges Politzer (1903-1942) was a French philosopher and Marxist theoretician. He was a disciple of Marx and Lenin. 6 Tudeh Party of Iran (lit. ‘Party of the Masses of Iran’) was an Iranian communist party founded in 1941 by Soleiman Mirza Eskandari as its head. It gained significant influence and followers during later years. After the success of Islamic Revolution in Iran, in 1984, its then president Ehsan Tabari (died in 1989) who worked for over 40 years in this organization, appeared on Iranian television and told viewers he had read works of great Islamic thinkers such as Ayatollah Mutahhari in prison and had now come to reject the works he had written over the past 40 years. He has now realized that his entire life's work was ‘defective’, ‘damaging’, and ‘totally spurious’ because it had all been based on unreliable thinkers such as Freemasons, secularists, Western liberals and Marxists. 5

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Third Lecture point of view) that I have to say this that when the Mujahedin Khalq7 too, when they wrote the book of their introduction and propaganda, they repeated the same thoughts of Georges Politzer about materialism and idealism8. They also made this mistake and saw the world from this point of view, and this is the biggest philosophical error that they have fallen into. Right now, you are witnessing that the Imam of the Ummah9 also rejects them. I have said in one or two other places that when I was in Lebanon in 1971, in the beginning days of the Mujahedin Khalq, they gave me this book before they published their book of introduction and propaganda. We read it in Lebanon and submitted these objections to them that your understanding of philosophy is a Marxist understanding and it is completely different from the truth that we believe in, so we do not accept it. The person who was in charge and brought this book was convinced and could not answer, so he went and brought a great thinker of their own, and he argued for a few hours and still could not give an answer and was convinced. They were convinced that this way of thinking is not Islamic and if they want to publish the book of their introduction based on this, they will inflict the biggest philosophical blow on themselves. But unfortunately, we saw that later the same book was published in the same style, and a controversy arose in the world. They even tried to contact the Imam of the nation10 and get acceptance of their philosophical thoughts from him. And he was also the one who, in the very first moments, when dealing with this kind of wrong understanding of philosophy, he understood very well that they do not have understanding of Islam and didn’t approve it. But unfortunately, they have suffered the same shortcomings as Marxists. This is the reason why we emphasize this matter more here 7

It’s a terrorist organization fully supported by USA-Zionist-European-Canadian alliance that has murdered, tortured and assassinated thousands of innocents in Iran and elsewhere. It is now based in Albania after thrown out of Iraq. 8 It should be noted that this speech took place on 26th July, 1980 (4th Mordad, 1359 S.H.) when the problems that were created by MKO during later years didn’t take place. 9 Imam Khomeini (ra) 10 Imam Khomeini (ra)

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Human Being and God that on one side is materialism and on the other side is idealism, but we are neither materialists nor idealists. And if Marxists want to make clash of all the God worshipers in the world with the idealists, it’s a philosophical blackmail, it’s a trick.11 This is because Muslims and Monotheists have never come to consider themselves as idealists. It is true that the word idealism (from the general point of view of the word) appears in people's minds as a spiritual or mystical word. But the philosophical concept of idealism means someone who is devoted to the mind and negates matter. Of course, we Muslims do not believe in this. The knowledge we express is different from their knowledge, and this whole discussion that I started just now is a discussion on the topic of knowledge. The materialists in the school of knowledge say that we are capable of knowing matter, they believe in positive knowledge. That is, we are able to know this matter, this world and these laws. Idealists believe that we are not able to know. Whatever we know is created and processed by our mind, therefore it is all subjective.

Islamic School of Thought But what Islam believes in: We believe there is matter, that is, existence of matter that is independent of the mind. In Islam, we believe that this matter, this existence is independent from mind ‘I’, whether ‘I’ exist or ‘I’ don’t exist. Idealists say that if there is no mind, there is no world. There is no reality. We believe that this matter exists independently from mind. It has external existence. But my knowledge of matter is from my mind. My knowledge of matter is subjective. What does this mean? It means that this matter exists, the existence of this matter is independent of my mind, but what I knew about this matter is related to my mind, and this knowledge becomes more and more perfect with the passage of time. Therefore, it is not a fixed thing. Marxists believe that our knowledge of this matter is objective. They

11

For a highly academic, scholarly and philosophical rebuttal of Marxism and Materialist School, please read the book ‘Society and History’ by Shaheed Mutahhari. Full text available at: https://www.al-islam.org/society-and-history-murtadha-mutahhari

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Third Lecture believe in objectivity. While we believe that this matter has an external existence independent of mind, but our understanding of this matter is dependent on the mind, dependent on science, and dependent on our existence, and the higher my knowledge, the more complete will be my understanding of this matter.12 One of the many beautiful issues that is discussed here is the issue of the laws of science. The laws of the universe, like the law of gravity, like the law of Planck’s13, like the laws of nature. For example, I say the law of attraction. We believe that this law of attraction exists and this law of attraction exists independently of my mind. Whether it's me or not, this law exists, but my knowledge of this law is mental knowledge. Based on my scientific knowledge, thinking, and mental activity, I will be able to know this law. As you know, no one knew the law of gravity for centuries until Newton14 came and Newton discovered this law of gravity when an apple fell from a tree. The same law that the force between two material objects will be proportional to the mass of the two objects divided by their distance to the power of two. That if you have two bodies, one ‘M’ and the other ‘Ḿ’. And let their distance be ‘d’, the force ‘F’ that attracts them is equal to the multiplication of two masses divided by the square of the distance between the two. This was the simplest formula that Newton obtained for the attraction of two bodies.

F=k MḾ/d2 This force of gravity had not been recognized for centuries. Then Newton came and recognized this law in this way. Then we 12

For a scholarly, scientific, logical and philosophical discussion on this topic, please read the book ‘Our Philosophy’ by Shaheed Ayatullah Baqir al Sadr. Full text available at: https://www.al-islam.org/our-philosophy-falsafatuna-sayyid-muhammad-baqir-al-sadr 13 Planck's law describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a definite temperature. The law is named after Max Planck, who originally proposed it in 1900. It is a pioneering result of modern physics and quantum theory. 14 Isaac Newton (1642-1726) was an English mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was a key figure in the Modern Scientific Revolution and is famous for law of gravity.

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Human Being and God see that a century passes and Einstein15 comes, and since Einstein had was working with the curvature of space and distant environments, he felt that this law is not perfect, so he creates another law that is in conflict with this law, and Einstein's theory of relativity enters it. This is a period that we call ‘the period of relativity.’ And again, some time passes and new physicists come forward and say that even Einstein's law of relativity is not enough. Then they enter the particle and atom, and it is the era when ‘Quantum Mechanics’ is born, and in Particle Physics or Quantum Physics, which is far superior to Physics of Relativity, they discovered newer relationships. Therefore, this law of gravity before Newton and after Newton and in our time and after our time is a truth, this attraction that is not different, is the same attraction. Every formula every relationship that exists between these two bodies is a relationship. It is a truth from the beginning of time to the eternity, but my understanding of this truth is changing. It is me who, over time, with the change of my knowledge and my mind, I am able to know more things about this law, which is a single truth in this world. I am sure that even today I have not understood its absolute truth. What I understand from it is a relative truth and certainly in the future we will have more complete relationships even from Quantum Mechanics. It is for this reason that we believe that this world of existence, these laws, and this universe has an external existence independent of my mind, but my knowledge of this world and these laws is subjective. This is why we call this school, the School of Realism. As I said last night, Shaheed Mutahhari called it Realism in the commentary of famous book written by Allameh Tabatabaei. Realism comes from reality. ‘Reality means truth’ which means something that is real. We are neither subjective like idealists, nor materialistic, but we accept the reality. What is that reality? It is

Albert Einstein (1875-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time. Famous for his theory of relativity. 15

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Third Lecture that this world has a reality that is independent of my mind, but my knowledge of this world is subjective. This is a fact. It is a reality. Therefore, our school is the School of Realism, in contrast to their School of Materialism and their School of Idealism. Therefore, if Marxists want to strike idealism and say that all Muslims and God worshippers are reactionary, are like them and so on; this is not correct at all. What you will determine in the discussion with them is that you first determine clear lines of what you believe in and what idealism means and what we believe in. As I said, you are able to convince them to think differently. The knowledge they believe is objective knowledge. In the book16 that Stalin17 wrote about knowledge, he says that ‘We are able to know the truth of the world’ while this is just a boast. No one can know the truth of the world. My knowledge of these facts is relative, my knowledge is subjective. Therefore, neither someone who comes and says that we have an objective knowledge of this world, that is, we are able to know the facts, and nor those who say that the world does not exist at all, that there is no external existence, that everything that exists is the creation of my mind, both of them are incorrect. Both have exaggerated and underestimated. Both have gone to extremes. While we accept the fact that there is a world and there is a reality separate from my mind, but my knowledge of these facts is subjective and it changes and becomes perfect with my knowledge and with passage of time. And this is more consistent with the logic, with science, with whatever they say in the two theories put forth by the leftists and the rightists (Materialists and Idealists). Therefore, I expressed my thoughts about matter on the basis of philosophy, but we believe in something else, and that belief in matter is removed from the mind or independent from mind. We say that there is a matter that is separated from the mind and 16

Foundations of Leninism published in 1924. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1878-1953) was a Soviet politician, who followed Marxism–Leninism ideology and led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. His policies led to several thousand death in Soviet Union. 17

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Human Being and God we also say that we believe in the existence beyond matter and we do not reject it. In other words, we say that in this world, at the same time that we accept matter as it is and believe in it, at the same time we believe that beyond matter there is something else, be it the spirit, or God, or the unseen world, or the supernatural or metaphysical world which I discussed the night before last night. We believe that these laws and other things that I will discuss for you, God willing (to the extent that there is time tonight), are true about the matter. What does it mean? We will mention laws about relativity, about absolutism or other things, and we say that these laws are material and apply to matter, but they certainly do not apply to something beyond matter. This is a big difference between us and the Marxists, which I will explain to you right now.

The Topic of Relativity I will try to solve basis or fundamental of philosophy for you tonight. I want to mention the second problem (which was just mentioned) and that is relativity. As you know, one of the important issues raised in dialectics and emphasized by Marxists is that the world and everything is relative. While in the school of idealism, they believe that everything is absolute, because everything is made and processed by the mind, when it is made and processed by the mind, these things will be absolute and unchangeable. For example, that picture that you have in your mind from the pool of your house from thirty years ago, that picture is still same as it was. Therefore, those things that have been in your mind for years have remained as they were. Therefore, it is absolute. But what do we Muslims believe in? In this regard, we say that the world is made up of matter plus transcendent matter or we can say that the spirit and everything else is made from transcendent matter (or is metaphysical). That is, we in Islam believe in that there is both matter and beyond matter (or metaphysics), and when we discuss relativity, we say that everything that deals with matter is relative. But things that are beyond matter are absolute. Therefore, in this system, we 90

Third Lecture believe that there exists both relative and absolute. Those things that are material are subject to change and transformation, so they are variable. They are relative. But those things that are beyond matter, in other words, they are ideas, they are laws, they are fixed and absolute. I will do a small discussion for you, and perhaps one of the most important discussions that Marxists say is the issue of relativity. They want to say that everything in the world is relative, and they want to say that science has proven that everything is relative, and since everything is relative, therefore the absolute cannot exist, and since the absolute cannot exist, God cannot exist either. Because according to the definition, we say that God is absolute, if there is no absolute in the world, then there is no God. This is one of the scientific reasons that Marxism emphasizes that everything in the world is relative and there are no absolute principles. I have mentioned the example that I have just now explained for you about the laws, especially the law of attraction, that this law is constant and unchanging from the beginning of time to the end of eternity. It is true that our understanding of this law changes, but it’s our understanding that changes. The reality of this law will be the same from the first day to the last day. Therefore, we see that the mountains collapse and the seas dry up. Many changes and transformations occur in the material world, but this is the law of gravity, it is the same from the first day to the last day. Physics has changed because physics is our mental knowledge. Chemistry has changed but the laws have not changed. Laws are fixed, laws are unchallengeable, laws are absolute. Therefore, we see that where there is an immaterial thing that is an immaterial law, these immaterial things become absolute. They will no longer be relative. This is one of the very important issues that Marxists mix together or want to mix in order to fish out of muddy water. While we can clearly see that even the law, which is the relationship between two material bodies, is not material itself. What is the law of gravity? They ask you, what is the law of gravity? We say that there is a force between two objects at a 91

Human Being and God distance. What does this force mean? Is it a hand that reaches out from this material object to attract another material object? Is it a magnetic force that attracts? Is it an electronic power that attracts? It is none of these. Einstein comes and says that ‘Space is curved and therefore when two objects fall inside this curve they tend to move towards each other. For example, consider a large rubber curtain that is tied here and there to the wall and is flat. As soon as you throw an object inside this rubber curtain, it will create a dimple in it. Now if you want to drop another object here, it will be drawn because it is dimmed here, it moves towards the dimple.’ This is the definition that Einstein wants to make for gravity, which is the property of space, that when two material objects are placed next to each other, they are attracted towards each other. Therefore, we see that we do not know what actually is the relationship between two bodies. The law of gravity is not correct that it pulls them together. It is neither electrical law nor magnetism nor anything else, it is something unknown to us. But we know that there is a relationship that brings these two material objects together and pulls them together. But whatever this law is, it is not material. What will be your definition of God or for the spirit? We say that God is not material. We say that God is beyond the dimensions of time and space. We say that God is not tangible. He cannot be touched. God cannot be seen, heard, or smelled.18 You can say all these things that we say about the law of attraction. The law of gravity is the relationship that exists between two bodies. It is not tangible, it cannot be touched, it cannot be seen, it cannot be smelled, it has no weight, it has no matter, it has no mass and no body. Therefore, we can see that the properties that (Seeking forgiveness from God) I want to mention for this law are in common with God's attributes, or at least they share some of the attributes. That is, when we move 18

For a detailed logical and philosophical discussion on this topic, please read Tradition of Myrobalan Fruit which is an enlightening discussion of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (as) and an atheist Indian physician. Full text available at: https://www.al-islam.org/traditionmyrobalan-fruit-hadith-al-halila-imam-jafar-al-sadiq

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Third Lecture towards laws from the matter, laws are closer to God, i.e. they have God's attributes and in other words, laws are the orders of God (order from Allah).19 They are the will of God, and this will of God manifests itself on matter. Therefore, the laws are one degree higher than matter. There is no matter, there is something else beyond matter, and this is why we see that these laws are the same from the first day to the last day. They are constant and unchanging. Contrary to the idea that Marxists say that everything is changing in this world, it is not true about the laws, the laws are fixed. And what they say about physics and chemistry is variable, our science is variable according to this law. Our understanding of this law varies, not the law itself, the law itself is fixed. This law of gravity was the same as the law of gravity ten billion years ago but we didn't know it and it is the same law that will remain after another ten billion years, maybe we will know more of it little by little. Therefore, we can see that the argument that they bring forth that the whole world is relative, is wrong. There are fixed things in the world that are absolute and unchanging. Those are relative things that move only in matter and the properties of matter. They are relative and we accept that they are relative. But at the same time, we accept that those things that are beyond matter, are absolute and fixed. Since this discussion is a very important one, I would like to explain more about the basis of relativity from a scientific point of view. You know that Einstein is the one who proposed and established theory of relativity, and when Einstein's relativity was published, Marxists came to life and gained power. They say, see, science proves that everything is relative and therefore there is no God. Thus, during Einstein's era and the zenith of relativity, Marxists were far ahead, but to clarify this discussion, I want to explain to you how Einstein arrived at relativity and how he discovered the law of relativity. From a physical point of view, we include the axes of the 19

‫َللا‬ ِ ّ ‫أَ ْم ِرمِ ْن‬

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Human Being and God coordinates in mathematics or in physics, here X and there Y, and you have a point like the point A in this system of X and Y and this point A moves with a speed equal to V (this is discussed everywhere in Newton's mechanics), that is, you have a coordinate system, a body inside this coordinate system moves. For example, if we say that the coordinate system is in this room and I myself am at the point A and I move in this room with speed V. Now if we consider a second device Ẋ and say this Ẏ and this point as Á, in the manner that this first device moves with a speed V0 compared to the second device. What does this mean?

If we want to make an analogy, similar to moving train and a human being inside it who moves inside the train with it, for example, we have a train and a person like me moves at a speed V inside this train. And this train or this train room itself moves with a different speed compared to the ground, which is the speed V0. Therefore, one of them (train) is moving on the ground and one of the people inside the train is moving towards the front. If we want to compare and find the speed of this person A (VA) in relation to this system Ẋ and Ẏ, the speed of the set of two speeds will be the speed V0 in addition to this speed V.

VA=V+V0 This is a very simple and obvious topic in Newtonian mechanics that everyone studies in physics in high school. But now let's make this speed of train faster and faster and faster until it reaches the speed of light. What does it mean? It means that this person who was in this train also moves with the speed of light, and this train itself is a set relative to the fixed device with the 94

Third Lecture speed of light. What do we find based on Newton's law? We find that the speed of this person A compared to the device should be equal to twice the speed of light. Because we converted this speed V to the speed of light, which we specify by C and V0 also with the speed of light, so it becomes equal to C+C means equal to 2C. We can assume that according to Newton's law, the speed of the train and the speed of the person who is in the train will be so high that it reaches the speed of light, and therefore Newton's law dictates that the speed of this man relative to the earth is equal to twice the speed of light. This is a result obtained from Newton's physics. This is what students study in school and the result will be this. But! But experience shows that no speed will exceed the speed of light anywhere in the world. It is impossible for you to have such an equivalent speed in nature. You pay attention to what I am saying. According to experience, it is impossible to have a speed greater than the speed of light for any device you measure. This is where the foundation of this old physics collapses at the feet of modern physics and shows that this physics is wrong at high speeds. It does not have an answer. This is where Einstein comes and says: ‘Very well, now that Newton's Physics has collapsed, we will come and establish the Physics of Relativity’, that is, new physics. But how does the new physics begin? My whole explanation is here. The new physics is built on a solid foundation. What is this solid foundation? I write20 because it is very important. Einstein says: (first we will say the simple one and then the general law) ‘The speed of light is constant in all devices.’ In all devices. This is very important in all devices. Einstein comes and says that I will explain the philosophical basis of infrastructure of all devices that the speed of light is constant when measured in any devise or system. That is, whether we measure it in this room, in relation to rockets, or in relation to galaxies, this constant speed of light does not change. Therefore, Einstein comes and builds his philosophy on the 20

Dr. Chamran gave lecture writing on black board.

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Human Being and God absoluteness of the speed of light. Are you paying attention? That is, his relativity is based on absoluteness. That is, if there was no absolutism, he would have half-achieved his own philosophy of relativity. Because Einstein proves his relativity, the basis of his philosophy is the absoluteness of the speed of light. Therefore, contrary to materialists claims that everything is relative, we see that the basis of Einstein’s philosophy is built on absoluteness, and if absolutism was not there, it was not possible for him to prove his own physics theory of relativity. Of course, Einstein does not only say this, but also says that ‘all laws’ are fixed and unchanging in all devices. That is, he wants to say that electromagnetic laws, magnetic laws, gravity laws, momentum laws, and various laws of physics and chemistry are constant in all devices. That is, on the moon, on the galaxies, on the earth, all these are fixed and unchanging. And the light itself, the light that we consider, is one of these laws, which is the law of magnetic waves that defines light for us. Therefore, when we say that the law of light is constant, this is just one of the physical laws that Einstein presented. This is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical foundations that Marxists and others have not understood, and they pass it by mistake. An this shows that in order for you to even prove Einstein's relativity, you must believe in the absoluteness of laws. The rules are absolute and unchangeable. Now what did we write here? We wrote that matter is relative and we have no disagreement with anyone. But those things that are beyond matter (metaphysical), which the laws are also considered apart from them, they are absolute and unchanging, and this is exactly compatible with our science and their ‘relativity’21. You can see that in the very big and important issue of relativity, we did not accept the opinion of the Marxists, who believe in relativity, nor the opinion of the idealists, who believe in Absolutism. We say about the material things of the world that they are relative, and we believe in the absoluteness of things 21

Relativite or Relativism

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Third Lecture beyond matter. Of course, one of the critical comments and points they mention against Marxists is that they say that Marxists themselves say that everything is relative, everything is variable except dialectics. Well, we say to them, if everything is relative, how is the dialectic constant? How did you know? Of course, they themselves don't know that if someone enters logic or dialectic, it is immaterial and as soon as they enter immaterial, something beyond matter can be absolute, but because they don't want to accept something beyond matter (or metaphysical), they want to say that everything is relative and even themselves. They themselves fall into contradiction and conflict and fall into this trap and make error.

Determinism and Free will Since there is not enough time, I think that I will only mention one more problem for you, which is a very very important philosophical problem, and postpone the rest to another time, and that is the problem of predestination and free will, which has been discussed by philosophers in the world since ancient times. As you know, in the issue of Predestination (or Determinism) and Free Will, Predestination means that man does not have free will in this world, what he does is forced, and he does it automatically under the influence of his internal or inherent movements. There are many examples of articles written by Marxists in this regards. They say, for example, a person gets hungry. His stomach secretes acid and puts pressure on his nerves. When he sees that there is water with food there, he makes a decision due to the pressure on his nerves, which is an involuntary decision and a forced decision to drink the water or eat food. Therefore, they believe that everything in the world is forced or predestined and there is no free will in this world. You know that the biggest problem they can take on these evils is that if the world is forced and people are forced to perform certain actions, then based on this assumption, what is the meaning of their punishment and their imprisonment? If a person is not responsible for his own actions, has no free will and 97

Human Being and God has not done something wrong by his own decision, how can he be punished? Opposite to these who believe in predestination, are followers of the western system of idealism, believing that everything is optional. They believe in absolute freedom. Especially Christianity and Catholics believe that everything is optional and there is absolute discretion or free will in this world. Even the existentialists have such belief. You know that Existentialism is a Western philosophy that originated from the West, and Jean-Paul Sartre22 and other philosophers are considered to be the stars of Existentialism. The greatest characteristic that Existentialism counts for itself is the issue of free will, that the human being has absolute free will, and in my opinion, this aspect of Existentialism is a progressive aspect. Because at a time when the Nazis and Germans had dominated France and the spirit of despair and hopelessness dominated the French people, Jean-Paul Sartre comes out and expresses his Existentialism philosophy based on absolute free will, and mentions there that every human being has free will and that a human being can even overcome the determinism or pressures brought by history. Even when they come and tell Jean-Paul Sartre that we will take a hatchet in front of you and say that you do this or we will kill you. In this case, are you free or forced? Jean-Paul Sartre says with joy, ‘I am still free. Why? For me it is I who can decide whether to live or die. I can decide, I have will, I have the power to die and not be a slave to dictators.’ This is a very important and interesting issue that Jean-Paul Sartre puts forth to fight against the Nazis, and for us this part of his philosophy is respectable, unlike the movement of the hippies, etc. The original philosophy of Existentialism was for the fight against the Nazis, which we saw later became distorted. In opposition to these two systems of absolute free will and Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (1905-1980) was a French philosopher, and political activist, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was famous for his philosophy of existentialism. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature which he declined. 22

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Third Lecture absolute determinism, what do we believe in? I refer to the very famous phrase that Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) said. ‘No compulsion (determinism), no authorization (free will), but a matter between two things.’23 Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) says that there is neither absolute determinism nor absolute free will in this world. Rather, what exists is something between these two. That is, there are things in this world that are forced and we accept that they are forced. If, for example, I was born in this family, this is a forced birth and it is not in my hands. Many things are forced in nature that cannot be ignored. Therefore, the words that they say that everything is optional are absurd. And on the other hand, there are many things in nature that we do are optional, not forced. One of them is the story that Maulana Rumi mentions in this regard that last night we remembered him. Tonight, I will also mention an example. He says: ‘When a road in a desert splits into two roads at a point, you stand there and think that I will go on this side or on that side. This is a place where there is no doubt that you have no knowledge of anything and you want to make a decision. It is clear that the will is your own.’ This couplet is from Maulana: The fact that you say I should do this or that Is the reason for free will, O my beloved That is, where there is doubt and a question arises for a person that should he go this way or that way, indicates that he has free will and can chose one option. And when you chose one option, it can be shown that you have other options too. Therefore, scientifically and logically, it can be understood that in this nature everything is not absolute free will and also not determinism, but something in between the two. But while going through issue of determinism and determinism itself, I would like to say that these human beings vary from close to absolute determinism to very close to absolute free will or absolute free will. Those human beings who live at the level of animals are closer to determinism. There are many of 23

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Human Being and God them. However, the more this human being travels to higher levels of spirituality that I discussed two nights ago, those seven levels of true love24 and those who travel these levels, and reach to the level of Imam Ali (as), these persons get closer to absolute free will. Human beings who reach to the level of Tranquil Soul, Pleased Soul and then reach Pleasing Soul are those that have absolute free will. Based on this, human beings who travel through spiritual journey and from a low level muddy human who is near to absolute determinism, rise to become a divine person, a Godly person who is close to absolute free will. This in itself is a very sweet and interesting discussion about predestination and free will, which can be shown that these people move in nature based on their personality and are freed from the material world as much as the flight of the spirit and the spiritual joy that touches them. And when they are freed from the absolute material world, it will be at that place where even his life will be in his own hands. There is a story that says that Attar25 was working in his medicine shop before he became a mystic. When a dervish came and passed by Attar's shop, he sees that this perfumer has a lot of talent and is so immersed in these medicines. Darvish stands outside Attar’s shop and starts looking at Attar. Every so often, Attar turns back and looks in that direction and sees that Darvish is still looking at him benevolently until he gets angry and says: ‘O dervish, what do you want from my life, that you look at me like this?’ Dervish tells him that ‘I wonder what you would be like when you were about to die. How will you die with this passion for this spices and this shop?’ Attar gets angry and says to the dervish, ‘I will die like you will die.’ Darvish says ‘This is impossible, you cannot die like me.’ Attar says ‘No, I will die like Refers to seven cities or valleys of love that Attar has described in his famous poetry Mantiq ut Tayr (The Conference of Birds). The seven valleys of love are: (1) Need, (2) True Love, (3) Gnostic Knowledge, (4) Being free of everything, (5) Monotheism, (6) Surprise and finally (7) Poverty and Annihilation. 25 Fariduddin Attar (1145-1241), was an Iranian poet, mystic and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Mysticism. Author of several works, the most famous is Mantiq ut Tayr (The Conference of Birds). 24

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Third Lecture you.’ Darvish says, ‘Do you want to experience it? Behold.’ Darvish takes his backpack from his back and puts it on the ground and puts his head on it and dies. Right at that moment, he wills and dies! Attar did not believe it at first. He comes out and shakes him, he sees that he is dead. There he transforms and leaves the perfume shop and turns towards divine knowledge and attains a high degree of mysticism and becomes known as Attar. I will end tonight's discussion here, and we will follow the rest of the discussions in the following nights. Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings

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Fourth Lecture

Fourth Lecture In the name of God, the beneficent, the merciful And thus We have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people1 Last night, we explained the concept of ideology in the general sense that a complete ideology should have three bases. One is the philosophical point of view, the second is the economic basis, and the third is the governmental or political basis. Last night, we compared three important schools and saw that in Western Capitalism, their philosophical foundation is Idealism, the Communism, their foundation was Materialism, and by comparing with these two schools, we named the philosophical school of Islam as Realism, that is, the school of realization. Again, as a philosophical foundation, we stated that in materialism, originality is with matter, i.e., Originality of Matter. And the School of Capitalism believes in the originality of the mind or the idea, and in the school of Islam, the originality is with God, that which is original and has absolute originality is only and only God. In the materialist school, which believes in originality with matter, they believe that matter is the creator of thought, that is, if there is a thought, this thought is a creation of matter, that is, matter is the creator of thought. In the school of idealism, on the contrary, they believe that idea is the creator of matter. The idea or mind is the creator of matter. That is, it is my mind that imagines this world of existence and creates matter and in the School of Thought of Islam, this God is the creator of matter and the creator of the mind. We see that in our school, matter is not the creator of the mind, nor is the mind the creator of matter, but there is a greater creator called God, who created both matter and the mind. Then we discussed about knowledge that they (materialists) 1

Holy Qur’an, 2:143

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Human Being and God believe in knowledge of matter, objective knowledge of matter and they (idealists) believe in mental knowledge, and in Islam we believe that matter is independent of the mind, but knowledge is subjective. Then we talked about determinism or predestination, that the material school is based on absolute determinism, and the school of idealism is based on absolute free will, and we are based on the famous statement of Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) (‘No compulsion (determinism), no authorization (free will), but a matter between two things.’).2 In other words, there is determinism plus free will. We also mentioned relativity, which was an important issue, because they (materialists) said everything is relative, and they (idealists) say everything is absolute. But in the school of Islam, matter (the material world) is relative but beyond matter, it is absolute. Of course, there are other discussions about philosophy that are very beautiful, such as movement, like silence, like ethics, and many other things that unfortunately we don't have the opportunity to discuss, but we can evidently see the clear truth that we understand here, that Islam is an intermediary between the Eastern and Western systems. All these philosophical topics written here clearly show that our school of thought is neither an Eastern school nor a Western school. And if there are those who mistake our Islam with Socialism or other systems, they are wrong. You know that a new movement arose in the Islamic world where many Muslim intellectuals tried to show that our Islamic system is a socialist system. In Iran itself, at the same time when we were students, a party or a philosophy called ‘God Worshipping Socialists’ was established. Or the late Jamal Abdul Nasser3 in Egypt named his system Islamic Communism. It means Islamic Socialism. In a meeting a few years ago in Algeria, 2

Al-Kulayni, Al-Kafi, vol.1, p. 160. Jamal or Gamal Abdul Nasser Hussein (1918-1970) was an Egyptian military officer and politician who served as the president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. He remains an iconic figure in the Arab world, particularly for his efforts for social justice and Arab unity, modernization policies and anti-imperialist policies. 3

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Fourth Lecture we were talking to the Minister of Culture of Algeria and we protested to him that in this big city, no Islamic slogans are used except Marxist and Communist slogans. And he said: ‘In our opinion, Islam means Socialism.’ Indeed, just last year when we went to Algeria for the anniversary of the Algerian revolution, there were probably thousands of slogans. People, students, workers, farmers, soldiers marched and carried many placards and banners with slogans, and in all these slogans, there was only one slogan in which the name of Islam was visible. That slogan was ‘No monasticism in Islam’ which means that there is no monasticism or priesthood in Islam. Out of all the slogans, the only slogan they chose about Islam was a negative slogan, not a positive one. When we talked to their elders, they said that in our opinion, Islam means Socialism, there is no difference between Islam and Socialism. But according to the explanation and interpretation we are doing here, we see that Islam has big difference with Socialism. Islam has nothing to do with the western system or with the eastern system. It is a self-contained independent system. And if someone is found who wants to associate or bring Islam near to or with this system or another system or consider them as one, they are in ignorance. I remember that in Algeria (of course, I am telling this story as break time) Imam Musa Sadr4, the leader of the Shiites of Lebanon, was discussing with the Minister of Culture of Algeria about Communism, and the Minister of Culture said: ‘In our opinion, Islam means Socialism.’ Then there was another meeting with some Arab leaders and they said that Islam is equal to Capitalism. And he asks ‘How did you say that?’ They say that because the Qur'an has named Mumineen (believers) as the Companions of Yamin (right).5 You know that there is a verse in 4

Musa Sadr al-Din al-Sadr (1928-disappeared 1978), or Imam Musa Sadr was an Iranianborn Lebanese scholar and spiritual and political leader of underprivileged of Lebanon. He went to Lebanon in 1959 and tirelessly worked for the uplift of downtrodden Shia population of Lebanon and also unified different communities including Sunnis and Christians of Lebanon. It is believed that sinister hands of Zionist secret service kidnapped and martyred him in Libya in August 1978. 5 Reference to verses 8 and 40 of Surah # 56 (al-Waqiah) of Holy Qur’an

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Human Being and God the Qur'an that mentions the Companions of Righteousness with respect, that they are Mumineen. This sheikh from Saudi Arabia said, ‘Look, the Qur'an itself says, Companions of the righthanders, that is, we are the right-handers,’ that is, we are Capitalists. And what a tough task it was for Imam Musa Sadr to prove to him that the Qur'an does not refer to the Companions of Righteousness as capitalists and that this is not the right interpretation. At that time, there had not yet been a division between the left and the right that the Qur'an wanted to refer to as the Companions of Righteousness or the Companions of Yasar (left). This is one of the big fallacies they bring to Islam and they want to bend Islam to one side or the other. Last night, I spoke a little about the Mujahedin Khalq, and one of their mistakes is the fallacy they committed in the philosophical understanding that I told you last night and the day before. Based on this, they have applied the socialist or Marxist view to Islam. You see that sometimes, for example, they paraphrase a verse of the Qur’an (I don't mean that particular group, but different groups). A young revolutionary comes and wants to prove that the Qur’an is all revolution and nothing else. He wants to say that it is an armed war and to hit and kill and such words. A mystical person comes and interprets the Qur'an and finds mysticism throughout it. A man of knowledge comes and wants to take science from the Qur'an. Another comes and he is a philosopher, he wants to adapt philosophy from the Qur'an. While the Qur’an is a balanced school, it has everything. And if some people come and want to limit the Qur'an to a specific category or to a specific way of thinking, they are wrong. There is an aspect of revolution, martyrdom and jihad in the Qur’anic verses. There is mysticism and theology, there is also science, there is everything in general. Therefore, the viewpoint that some people want to make the Qur'an specific to a certain group is definitely wrong. I will end my discussion here from a philosophical point of view. These issues that I raised so far were based on philosophy. As I explained to you, I said that a complete ideology must have 108

Fourth Lecture three important foundations, which is one of the philosophical foundations that we made this comparison here. And the second is the economic system and the third is the governmental and political system.

Pursuing Determinism and Free Will The last thing I explained in previous night was about determinism (predestination) and free will, and you know that many books have been written about predestination and free will, and I can say that no one has been able to completely solve the issue of predestination and free will. One of the best books ever written is ‘Predestination and Free Will’ by our great scholar and philosopher Allameh Mohammad Taqi Jafari6, which is a very deep book, and the direction I took in dealing with the problem of predestination and free will is completely different from what others have taken and or they have used to solve it. This is because questions have been asked about it. I like to say few more words about predestination and free will and will then talk about economic base. Of course, what I'm saying has no place here, so I pass by very quickly. In physics and quantum mechanics, there is a very famous relationship that perhaps the greatest formulas of quantum mechanics are based on it. I will not go into the science of quantum mechanics and physics, but what I want to say is that: The product of the degree of free will of human personality multiplied by the degree of determinism is equal to a constant value. Constant value = degree of free will of human personality x degree of determinism As we said, this is one of the important formulas of physics. In order to give you a better explanation of this formula, I will draw it as a graph or as a figure and it will be like this. If we draw two axes (X and Y), one of which is the axis of free will and the other Allameh Mohammad Taqi Jafari (1925-1998) was a famous Iranian scholar, philosopher, intellectual, and Islamic theologist. He was expert in various fields such as history, logic, metaphysics, philosophy, literature, mysticism, jurisprudence, and philosophy of science. 6

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Human Being and God is the axis of determinism, the algebraic curve of the personality of this relationship becomes such a curve. Those who have studied ‘hyperbola’ in the fourth or fifth year of high school know that in this relationship, X multiplied by Y is equal to a constant value.

Y x X= Constant This gives a hyperbola curve according to the figure:

Y is equal to the degree of freedom and X is equal to the degree of determinism that governs a human being. If we look at this relationship from this point view (Please pay attention, it’s very attractive and beautiful), when a person is at point A on the curve, if that point is in the middle, from this point A, if we draw a line perpendicular to the axis Y, the personality of this person is this much on this axis OD. Means that, if we take the perfect human being from these points A’ (this is, for example, 20 percent, 30 percent of a perfect human being), the degree of his determinism is from the point O to C’, OC’,… Now, if this person has lower level personality, it means that he descends to animal 110

Fourth Lecture levels A”. We see that this person is going down little by little, that is here D” (very low level of free will), there are very few characteristics here. At the same time, we see that the degree of determinism is increasing at C” until it moves towards infinite values. At the last point, when this curve is tangent to this axis (with X axis), that is where the character of this human becomes zero, the degree of infinite determinism means absolute determinism, meaning an animal. An animal is a person whose personality is zero and therefore absolute determinism rules over him. So here (A”) where we are coming down the curve, its towards animality. On the other hand, when it comes to a great character, for example, a person who is placed here is a point A’, we can see that the determinism value is reduced. The higher we go up here (the Y axis) until it touches this curved axis of the personality at infinity (on Y axis) and its determinism is zero, that is, we reach a place where this human being has zero determinism or absolute free will. As I said last night, this person is like Hazrat Ali (as), whose personality has reached infinity, so his determinism has become zero. And according to the discussion that we had the first night, I explained the levels of the soul in seven levels, which starts from the Self-Reproaching Soul and ends with the Pleased Soul and then finally Pleasing Soul. In the interpretation of the Pleasing Soul, I said that the state of this soul is same as the spirit. It means that a person reaches a place where he really becomes identical with the spirit. And in that state, he has absolute authority (free will), that is, destiny (or determinism) no longer rules over him. Therefore, a large part of this discussion that the Determinists started with the Free-willers and they want to prove that for this human being is either free and free-willed or forced, etc., can be solved with this interpretation that I used from mathematics and physics and drew for you. That is, it is possible for a human being to descend to the level of an animal and be absolutely forced and also to ascend to the loftiest level of malakut and be absolutely free willed. Personalities of human beings constantly fluctuate between 111

Human Being and God these two limits, maximum and minimum. The higher a person's personality, the more free will he has and the less determinism he has and vice versa. That is, based on the same division of the seven stages of love, from the Commanding Soul begins from here, the point of curved contact with the X axis. It comes here little by little, for example to point A” where it reaches level of Intellectual Soul, then Inspirational Soul to reach Tranquil Soul (approximately at point A) then to the Pleased Soul approximately at point A’) and finally to Pleasing Soul. Pleasing Soul is the point that is tangent to the Y axis at infinity. However, this is a new perspective on determinism and free will that solves a large number of existing problems, especially problems that the philosophers are no longer able to answer. Because they want to consider and solve this problem by looking at the human being in his static state, in his inert state, and this is not practical, because the human being is variable, changes all the time and has a thousand parameters, so they suffer from mistakes.

Economic basis We will skip the philosophical discussion, which was part of the philosophical foundation in this point of view, and we will start with the economy. One of friends asked me a delicate question last night. He said that I have said ‘Economic Infrastructure’ and this is a so-called controversial discussion when someone says that ‘Economic Infrastructure’ means the economy is the foundation of everything, and this is the opinion that Marxists hold that the foundation of everything is the economy, and he objected to me whether from that point of view ‘Is economy the basis of everything?’ I said to him ‘No’. Here, when I say economic infrastructure, I don't mean that the base of everything is the economy, but in terms of comparison, I wanted to say ‘philosophical base’, ‘economic base’ and ‘political or governmental base’. However, to prevent this problem, I have written ‘economic basis’ so that it does not create doubt in the mind of anyone. 112

Fourth Lecture

Capitalism We start from the place that is simpler and that is the capitalist system. Of course, the things I am saying are general, because there is no way to get into economics, especially Islamic economics, Marxist economics, and Capitalist economy, because it takes a lot of time and we don't have the time to summarize all of this in a half-session. What I am saying is the basis of their philosophy, not that we want to describe its details. In this (capitalist) system, they believe in ‘ownership’ which means accepting ownership. And after accepting the ownership that every human being can be the owner of things with capital, it is accepting the freedom of trade. ‘Freedom of trade’ means humans are free to do whatever they want to trade and so by accepting ownership and freedom of trade, according to a natural principle in humans that the talents are different, there is a difference in the amount of capital. Imagine this issue, the talents of people are different and when freedom and property are given, due to the existence of different talents, some individual's capital will increase and while for some it will decrease. As a result, class differences will arise based on this philosophy or infrastructure accepted by Capitalism, some become capitalists (rich) and some become poor. Again, these are the controversial discussions that Marx himself made about the economy and capital, and in the same famous book ‘Das Kapital’ or ‘Capital’, he stated these and said that as soon as someone becomes a capitalist and acquires the means of production with his own capital, it is certain that undoubtedly, exploitation will arise, and it proves that after there is a dispute, exploitation will arise, and the reason for this exploitation, mentioned in this big and thick book (Das Capital) I am presenting in summary of for you, which is: In principle, when an employer in a factory where a number of workers work under him and he has capital and has a factory and means of production, he ‘takes a certain amount of use for himself from the amount of work that these people give’ which is called ‘Surplus 113

Human Being and God Value’7 in his language. That is, if a worker has worked ten tomans, this employer will pay him eight tomans, and therefore he will keep two tomans in his pocket for his own use. And it will increase, and therefore this capitalist will become more capitalist and that poor person will become poorer, and the class difference in a capitalist society will become more and more, and it will reach a point where these big capitalists will gain control over the society and take the people under their rule. That is, they will take media, propaganda, politics, the government, and the parliament under their control because when they have material power, they will be able to buy television, radio, and newspapers and have the advertisements under their control. This is where these capitalists in the capitalist society exploit their own people and the means of production evolve and the production goes higher and higher. Their production will have a greater impact from within their own society. If we consider America, we will see that it makes so many cars that cannot be consumed inside America itself and is more than their own consumption. Therefore, this capitalist country tries to export its surplus products to other countries and tries to enter Asia and let's say Africa and South America and create a market. This is where colonization occurs. After colonization, exploitation is the result. In order to sell its surplus products obtained from internal exploitation of its own workers, to get to new markets, it has to subjugate other countries, that is, ‘colonization’ as these capitalists are not dependent on individuals in the world. Thus, one is America, for example, one is England and one is Germany, and every capitalist country wants to create its own market and offer its extra products in these new markets, so there is 7

The surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated into profit in capitalism. Value created by the unpaid labor of wage workers, over and above the value of their labor power, and appropriated without compensation by the capitalist leading to exploitation of labor. Surplus value is a specific expression of the capitalist form of exploitation. Karl Marx held that human labor was the source of economic value. The capitalist pays his workers less than the value their labor has added to the goods, usually only enough to maintain the worker at a subsistence level. Thus, to make a profit, Marx argued, the capitalist appropriates this surplus value, thereby exploiting the laborer.

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Fourth Lecture competition between the big capitalists. America wants to subjugate Iran, Soviet Russia also wants to subjugate Iran, so there is a competition between these two superpowers to find this new market to sell their surplus products. From where the competition arises, we see that it leads to war. Like world wars. World War I and World War II were the result of the competition between these capitalists and big superpowers to find new markets and resources. Therefore, we see that this system, that is, the system of Capitalism or Free market system, in summary is the disaster that devastates and destroys the world, just as it has already ruined. And if the third war has not started yet, it is because the superpowers themselves are afraid that they will be destroyed. Because the severity of the destruction of atomic bombs is so great that if they fight together, they themselves will certainly be destroyed, not only will they drag the Asian and African countries into it, but their own lives will be in definite danger. And this is the reason that in this balanced situation, the third war has not started. Therefore, we see that this Western capitalist system is a disaster.

Communism Well, now Marx comes and says that since this system (means Capitalist system) is a disaster (and we also accept it), then we have to prevent this system. What should we do? What should we think to solve it? In order to think of a solution, he says that the base of these was the result of acceptance of ownership, so we propose the negation of ownership. Therefore, it abolishes individual ownership. He says that we do not accept ownership and the ownership of means of production and capital should be in the hands of the government, not in the hands of a human being. Therefore, in order to solve these problems, they abolish the freedom of trade, meaning lack of freedom, which means that all trade is in the hands of the government, and no one in the communist countries or the Eastern Bloc countries can do business or trade. Therefore, by removing trade and ownership, no one will have authority to do production, trade and have 115

Human Being and God capital, to totally remove exploitation and this is it to prevent exploitation. This is because when no one has money, no one has means of production, no one has capital, certainly is not able to exploit another person. Of course, the problem that arises here is that it is true that they have taken the capital from the hands of the people, but they have fed it into the hands of the government. The government has become great capitalist. That is, instead of individuals being capitalists, the government has become capitalist. And now this government exploits the workers and those who are at helm of the government have the best facilities and luxuries of life and power in their hands while the underprivileged and oppressed people are deprived of the most basic needs. I myself have been in Soviet Russia about seven years ago8 and I have seen big cities and great personalities and many different parts of Russia, and I must say that the bureaucracy and the desire for power that existed in Russian employers are not found anywhere else, not even in America. That is, in a factory or in an office of a Russian farm, when you enter, you will see the boss sitting on top of a big very big table, which is often in the shape of a cross, and at least seven or eight people are standing in front of this boss with a bowing posture, who is giving his orders to execute. Whereas in capitalist countries, if you consider managers, you will see a manager with two rooms and a secretary doing all their administrative works. I myself was in front of the Kremlin Palace and I was taking pictures of those big and famous old churches. I saw one of the Russian policemen telling me to leave this place. I thought he wanted to say that taking pictures is forbidden. But taking pictures of churches was not forbidden. He saw that I wasn't leaving. He followed me and attacked to beat me. I ran away. As soon as I ran away, a car bigger than Cadillac or similar to it passed by where I was standing at a very high speed. A door of the Kremlin Palace opened and a person went inside. I found out 8

This speech was delivered on 27th July, 1980 (5th Mordad, 1359).

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Fourth Lecture that one of the so-called members of the political office of ‘Politburo’ of Soviet Russia was trying to pass, and they are so arrogant and pharaoh-like that if a person is in front of them, they will hit and throw them, and this policeman wanted to save my life. He said, ‘Get out of here’, when I was standing and taking pictures until he forcibly followed me to save me. Over all, these ordinary people are dirt for them, they are nothing, they are not human, they have no value. They have pharaonic rule for themselves in those magnificent palaces and with those powers. The salary difference between a simple worker and a highranking official, a professor or their leader is much higher than the salary difference in America between a university professor and a worker. Which means, if you consider America itself, suppose a worker's salary is one thousand dollars a month, how much is a university professor's salary? Two thousand dollars, three thousand dollars, double or triple. In Soviet Russia, the difference between the salary of a professor and that worker is about eight times. It is even much more than America, which itself is the manifestation of injustice and oppression of Communism. In any case, in the system of Communism, it is the government that invests and exploits the people, and the attacks that these great socialist governments made on Eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland and other places9 show that it is the government that exploits other governments and makes them their own colony. Therefore, oppression and exploitation exist, but on a larger and broader scale. Ordinary people may not understand and recognize, but in general, this oppression and exploitation exists. I myself have traveled inside Soviet Russia (I am going out of the topic again) to the Muslim regions of Russia, to Uzbekistan, whose capital is Tashkent, and then Samarkand and Bukhara, which were of great interest to us, in Tashkent, which is perhaps Uzbekistan, and Tashkent is the center of Russian oil and Russian cotton and there was so much harvest 9

Afghanistan

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Human Being and God and so much cotton threshing was piled up on the side of the highways that I was scared. But in this fertile region of Uzbekistan, there were mud houses like the ones you can find around Quchan10 or in the poorest villages of Iran. In the same city of Tashkent (as well as in other cities of Samarqand and Bukhara), you could see tall buildings and high class modern apartments for those who were in the government and are members of the Communist Party, but right next to them are humble mud houses with small doors so that if you want to enter, you should bend so much that your head does not hit the top of the door and the arch. When you walked in their alleys, you would sink in the mud at least up to your feet and it showed how horrible this class difference between the two groups inside Russia itself is in their most fertile areas. In any case, in order to solve this capitalist problem, they denied ownership, so that exploitation disappears, but exploitation appears in a new form, in the form of governmental exploitation. Another problem that arises here is the killing of talents. Because they take away people's freedom and deprive them of their property, these people do not work with the enthusiasm and do not work hard. Basically, in a dictatorial environment, a large amount of human talent is killed, is destroyed. Especially, a person who knows that he has a certain salary at the end of the month will no longer try to work harder than that. This is why you see that in Soviet Russia, even though the Ukraine11 region, which is unique in the world, despite all these conditions, Soviet Russia does not even guarantee its own wheat, and it is forced to buy from America or other countries. In America, you may know that only six percent of people are engaged in agriculture and this is the six percent that do agriculture in America, their production is so high that they provide for their own needs and the needs of other parts of the world. Even after that, their production is so high that in order to keep prices high and do not drop, to be very sorry and with all 10 11

Quchan is a city in Razavi Khorasan province of I.R. Iran. Ukraine is one ot the largest producers of world wheat.

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Fourth Lecture their heart, they set fire to or throw into the sea, all the surplus produce. Sometimes, so much cow's milk is produced that you see that the price of milk will drop if they supply it to the market. Milk flows like a river in the desert or the sea. Burning wheat and other things that America does against the principles of humanity is famous. Please pay attention, our aim here is not to pursue their illegal actions, but what we are discussing is that six percent of the American people are engaged in agricultural work, and with this six percent, this great efficiency is achieved for them. Now if on the basis of wrong ways of Capitalism they are engaged in actions against humanity, it is something else and we condemn both these two schools may it be Capitalism or be it Communism. But we wanted to show that in Communism when they tried to destroy exploitation and colonialism, not only did they not achieve such a success, but in a different way, they dragged their own people into the chains of exploitation and colonialism.

The slogan of neither East nor West Did you notice that before we get into the discussion of Socialism and Communism, I strongly rejected the western capitalist system, however, unfortunately, I have to say that there is a sensitivity for some people who see one side of the issue and do not pay attention to the other side of the issue, while according to our view, we reject both the east and the west. The slogan of ‘Neither East nor West’ is our slogan. Contrary to many people who think that Soviet Russia or the Eastern system is their friend and the Western system is their only enemy. They are both the same for us, and other than the Islamic system, no other system is acceptable for us. From the point of view of politics, currently, Soviet Union, and China are the representatives of Eastern bloc and American and Western Capitalism represents Western bloc. In between them, we form the middle block with the third world. And this third world has different spectrums from our point of view. As you know, in the third world there were people like Tito12, like the 12

Josip Broz (1892-1980) or Marshal Tito was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and

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Human Being and God late Jamal Abdul Nasser, Sukarno13, like Nehru14. Different personalities were found in the third world, but in our opinion, the ‘third world’ is the basic and fundamental world that is not only politically between the two blocs, but also philosophically independent from the two systems, and according to this definition, only the real Islamic states, they are the third world, that are considered the middle block. That is, for example, Castro15 and Cuba are politically trying to separate themselves more or less from the two blocs, but philosophically, they are dependent on the Russian system, so according to the definition, Cuba cannot be considered a middle state or in the third world. But Iran is the best example that politically doesn’t accept the East nor the West. Philosophically, it also has the originality of rejecting both philosophies and having a philosophy of its own. In other words, in the present world, no one can economically and politically be independent from the two blocs of the world, unless it is philosophically separated and has a place in the third world, but as I said, I am sorry that many revolutionaries of the world and from advanced countries see one side of the issue and do not see the other side of the issue, and because many questions regarding Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and other countries have been received, here I want to make a side note, and that side note is that most of these revolutionary countries in the world are

politician and a national leader from 1943 until his death in 1980. He also served as the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1953 until his death in 1980. 13 Sukarno (1901-1970) was an Indonesian statesman, revolutionary and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. He led the Indonesian struggle for independence from the Dutch colonialists. He was pro-socialist and was removed by Western - CIA led coup in 1967 by Suharto. 14 Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat politician He was the leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s until India's independence in 1947 and served as the prime minister for 16 years. 15 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (1926-2016) was a Cuban Marxist–Leninist revolutionary leader. He defeated US supported Batista government in Cuban revolution in 1959 and was prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Cuba became a oneparty communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.

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Fourth Lecture currently selling themselves to Soviet Russia and are on the front of Soviet Russia when they want to fight against America. The Palestinian resistance, which many friends have asked, is one of these examples.16 In order to fight with America and Zionism, the Palestinian resistance throws itself into the lap of Soviet Russia, and therefore we see that the position of the Palestinian resistance is the position of Soviet Russia in the politically important issues in the Middle East. It means that it has lost its political independence, one of the clear examples of which was the issue of Afghanistan. In the issue of Afghanistan, Muslim countries wanted to support Afghan Muslims and take a position against Soviet Russia, but some of these Arab countries took Russia's position. Because they need weapons from Soviet Russia and they have to sell themselves to Russia to fight America. Once again, we return to our main discussion, i.e. Economic Basis.

Islam In Islam, we say that ownership belongs to God. The owner of everything is God, but this great God gives this man the authority to rule over this property, that is, man becomes the representative of God, the representative or the lawyer of God. This is a very interesting and deep discussion in economics, as to how do we solve the problem of ownership in Islam. I want to say a word that is from my own experiences in these economic discussions after many years, that word is that the objections which Marx takes on Capitalism are all correct, and the issue of ‘Surplus Value’ etc., is correct, and all those who even from Muslims have come to solve the problem of ‘Surplus Value’, they have not been able to solve it. None of them could give answer to Marx. Because the answer to Marx cannot be given within the system of Capitalism and the system of Marxism. If someone wants to enter

This speech was delivered on 27th July, 1980 (5th Mordad, 1359) when until that time some of the leaders of Palestinian resistance with shameful conspiracies, joined with the West and Zionism and their representatives, Shah Hassan, Shah Hussain, Husni Mubarak and others. And this change of stance is itself an important topic. 16

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Human Being and God into the discussion within the intellectual boundaries of this system or that system, he will fail. The result of all my arguments over the years with many people is that only and only Islam is able to solve the economic problem by relying on the foundation of godliness. That is, if we consider Islam as a whole, which has a system of worshiping God, an economic system and a political system, you will be able to solve the problem, but if you want to consider the economic system of Islam separately, the economic problem will not be solved and the problem of ‘Surplus Value’ will remain with all the efforts that some people make and ask for help from khums17, zakat, law, etc., etc., this problem will not be solved in any way, unless they consider the Islamic system as a whole, which is based on the foundation of godliness, as you can see in the first sentence I wrote about the economy. We say that the real owner is God. It completely changes the way of thinking. Ownership is not discussed in our Islam as it is discussed in the West or in the East. In Islam, my own property belongs to God, what about my own property, surely it also belongs to God. This point of view is completely different. Therefore, if you want to argue with a Marxist and want to argue within the Marxist system, you will not be able to solve the issue of ‘Surplus Value’ unless you enter the Islamic economic system and introduce the philosophical view of Islam in your discussion. In any case, in Islam, ownership belongs to God and human being is God's agent to intervene and use it in this land, and as you have seen, in philosophy and in the topics that I mentioned to you last night and the night before, these two great systems (Capitalism and Communism) both go to extremes. Or one of them goes to this end of extreme and the other to that end of extreme. While our Islam does not go to this extremes, nor to that extremes, it considers what is right and appropriate. The beautiful curve that I described to you for predestination, free Khums refers to the required religious obligation of Shia Muslims to pay 20% of their acquired wealth from certain sources toward specified public and social works as defined by Mujtahid (leading Jurisprudent Scholar) they follow. 17

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Fourth Lecture will and personality showed that at the limit of contact, one side (Determinism) is on this side and one is on the other side (Free will), while we are in the middle. Our human personality must move within this curve of those middles. The same case is here. After accepting this philosophical foundation, we have two principles in Islamic economics, one of which is called the ‘authority’(tasleet) principle and the other is called the ‘no harm’ (la zarar) principle. The principle of authority is based on a hadith that says: ‘People have authority over their lives and property.’18 that people are in control of their own property and their own souls. There are many verses that mention this view that works that human beings do, they are responsible for their own works. ‘Every soul is hostage to what it has earned.’19 And ‘And that man shall have nothing but what he strives for.’20 There are many verses that mention this concept and prove authority and this point of view. This means that this person can be the owner, but not like the absolute ownership of the West. Ownership of another type that I will describe to you now, which is limited ownership. If we want to write here, we can write ‘Bound ownership’ (or limited ownership). Therefore, base of principle of ‘authority’ (tasleet) is the acceptance of ‘bound ownership’. And the base of ‘no harm’ (la zarar) is also based on a prophetic hadith: ‘In the religion of Islam, you can neither harm yourself nor harm others.’21 Someone22 had a tree in another person’s house and sometimes he would enter that man's house to use the fruit of his tree, and the owner of the house complained to the Prophet of Islam that in short, this person is bothering me. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) called this man and told him. He said, ‘Why are you bothering this man?’ He said: ‘I have ownership of a tree, I am the owner of this tree, so I have the right to use my Al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol.2, p. 273, hadith # 7. Holy Qur’an, 74:38. 20 Holy Qur’an, 53:39. 21 Kulayni, al-Kafi, vol. 5, p. 292 22 Samrah bin Jandab 18 19

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Human Being and God ownership.’ Prophet (pbuh) told him, ‘Your ownership is applicable to the point when it is not to be used to the detriment of the society or to others. Where your personal ownership is to the detriment of others, this ownership is canceled.’ (In the religion of Islam, you can neither harm yourself nor harm others.) and it was based on this concept that he ordered the tree to be uprooted and said: ‘This is your tree.’ Therefore, there is a limitation for the ownership of this property which means that this limitation is set to prevent harm to the people. This word that I am saying is important in the sense that I want you to pay attention not to follow the slogans of extremism and to appear to be revolutionary. This is a detailed discussion that I will summarize for you. We see that Islam allows us to move freely from here to there within the limitations of this ownership and without ownership. That is, it does not limit us that you must be here, but it gives freedom that is based on social conditions, you can define the limits of ownership and state of ownership by yourself, as long as it is necessary for your interests or as determined by Islamic social scholars. For this, I will give an example again: Suppose that in America, when immigrants moved from the east to the west, there was a law that anyone who settles on a piece of land, the land belongs to him. Even now in parts of the great deserts of Nevada and New Mexico where there is large and fertile land and no one has cultivated there so far. Anyone who wants to work in these fertile lands can cultivate. The American government gives them fifty thousand dollars or a lot of money. It digs a well for them, provides machinery and gives all the necessary aid, and the land belongs to the one who can develop that land, on the condition that in the first year they build a wall around it, and in the second year they build a house inside it, and in the third year there are people on this land to live. Under these conditions, the American government gives money and helps those who occupy and develop these lands. One of the major reasons for settling down in America was this same law that all the immigrants started to come and settle in these lands. Now, 124

Fourth Lecture let's assume that a century will pass and after a century, the number of people will increase and all these previously unfertile lands will be developed and occupied, then it will no longer be possible to give freedom to anyone to occupy any land with any dimensions they want. Because there was little land and number of people will be more. Therefore, in that situation, a limit should be created, a limit should be set. For example, ten hectares will be the maximum for a family, and maybe it will be less in another place where it will be even less than ten hectares such as the occupied land of Quds, whose land is less and the number of people is more and they are forced to cultivate their own land. Therefore, in order to improve agriculture in a large country like Iran, where there are a lot of agricultural lands and deserts, you must give freedom to people to use their energy and strength to cultivate these lands. And this law is Islamic law. When it comes to the principle of tahjir (making a fence or wall or stone wall around a previously unoccupied land to develop it)23 that anyone who comes and builds a wall around a land, builds a fence, this land belongs to him, provided that he settles and develops it within two years, and if he does not, the Islamic government can take this land from him and hand it over to another. This is one of the Islamic laws. Therefore, where there are large lands, we should give freedom of ownership according to our Islamic teachings and encourage these people to be able to carry out agriculture. But let's suppose that after fifty years, when all these deserts and lands are developed and settled and there is no new land left, it is there that there should be limits based on principle of ‘no harm’ and reduce it less and less. Maybe it will reach a point where all the lands will be nationalized and will be in the hands of the government. There is no problem again. Because, we see that our Islam gives the freedom to fluctuate from absolute ownership to absolute Socialism (if we can use this term) with ‘absence of absolute ownership’ and gives the place and position of this Tahjir, is a jurisprudential and legal term in Islam. It is about revitalization of fertile land. Doing something like laying stones and building walls in fertile land is called Tahjir. 23

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Human Being and God fluctuation to the hands of scholars. Highly expert Islamic jurisprudents (Mujtahidin) of that time. Islamic government of that time. Mujtahidin means scholars of religious sciences and economics of their own era, and they should sit down and determine the ownership of this land, and make laws based on conditions of their time as to today it should be at this point and after two years to the other point or level. But what we see, based on the slogans that are raised in many countries, they blindly assume that they should follow either Socialism or follow the Western system, which is not advisable at all. I remember that in the past I was in Egypt for two years and spent some time in other Arab countries. One of the countries was Iraq. After the victory of Abdul Karim Qasim24 and the new socialist government in Iraq, everything was nationalized and even the shops were nationalized. For example, there was a vegetable shop whose total capital was less than five hundred tomans, they came and took these shops and gave them to the government. All the pharmacies were also taken and nationalized and handed over to the government. Suddenly, after six months it was noticed that no medicines were available. Because the government was weak in its organization and administration was also weak, the situation was chaos and the government was not able to provide these needs of the people in any way. You know that for a greengrocer whose total capital is not more than five hundred tomans, if they want to work with the government bureaucracy, at least a few employees must take care of the matter and that each employee receives a salary of at least several thousand tomans a month to work for a greengrocer, which is in no way advisable. It is not economical in any way. While in the same days when Qasim was in Iraq with these hot and extreme slogans of Socialism, Abdul Nasser in Egypt was

24

Abd al-Karim Qasim al-Zubaidi (1914-1963) was an Iraqi Army brigadier and nationalist who came to power overthrowing Iraqi monarchy on 14th July 1958 Revolution. He was Baathist and pro socialist and ruled until his downfall and execution in 1963.

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Fourth Lecture much wiser. Nasser also made the same claim of Islam and Socialism, but the law he laid down in Egypt was that large factories with more than 50 workers were nationalized, and factories with less than 50 workers remained private. This means that those steel factories and big factories that had huge capitals were taken and handed over to the government, but a blacksmith factory or let's say a door and window making factory that has seven or eight workers that was not at all economical for the government and cannot be taken over and managed by it, were left to private sector without any intervention. And one of the reasons for Egypt's relative victory over Iraq was this case. Now, here in Iran, they may come today and say that factories with fifty workers should be nationalized, after two years, Mujtahidin may sit and say that up to ten workers should be nationalized, and maybe after a hundred years or two hundred years with one worker may be nationalized. But in the current situation, with these problems, it is not advisable at all. With this severe strict bureaucratic system and the inefficiency of these one and a half million employees in the government system, it is not advisable for them to come and want to take control of everything by a government whose administrative system is ‘the house which is ruined from the ground up.’25 Especially in systems where the organization among them is weak, the more they try to create centralization, it will lead to more chaos and more failures. When we pay attention to these two principles, if we want to make a comparison, the first principle becomes base of Capitalism and the second principle becomes the base of Socialism. Therefore, Islam is able to change between Capitalism and absolute Socialism from infinite minus to infinite plus and the position of this change will be determined by the Mujtahids of the time or the Islamic government of the time. That is, this

25

By the grace of God and wise leadership of Imam Khomeini (ra) and later of Seyyid Ali Khamenei (ha), despite inhumane US sanctions, the Islamic government system has not only become stronger during last over 44, but it has emerged as a model of sustainable economy in the world based on Islamic philosophy, political system, ijtihad and Wilayate Faqih (The Governance of Islamic Jurist).

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Human Being and God freedom has been given to them and the value of the Islamic doctrine does not derive from this or that. Our Islam and our economic system is not a forced and dogmatic system that would say that you must do this, it is not the case at all. They are the experts in Islamic economics and mujtahids of the time who sit and determine the exact position of this matter. This discussion that I mentioned here is just the foundation. But why does Islam do this? It does this because it knows that people's talent should be revealed, nurtured and used, so it doesn't want to take ownership away from people. It gives the ownership to the extent that this ownership is not detrimental to the people. As you know, due to all the fatwas of our jurists and the government of the time, it will be possible to take even the capital of a human being absolutely. When it is felt that it should take the capital of this man, because this capital belongs to God, it will be the authority of government to take this capital by right. Therefore, we will not have any fear of anything that suddenly Capitalism and exploitation will arise or other similar things discussed earlier.

The real owner is God But I want to say one thing more delicate, although it is a very thorough discussion and time does not allow me to say it in detail, and the fact that I told you in relation to ‘Surplus Value’ that it cannot be solved, it is very difficult that in a factory that there are ten or fifty workers, you can accurately calculate it so that the issue of ‘Surplus Value’ does not arise. Of course it happens. That is, it is not in your hands or mine and there are other parameters that are out of our control. But what does Islam say? What I am saying is very very important. Islam says that suppose this employer has 50 employees and the problem of ‘Surplus Value’ has arisen and some of the additional capital has been acquired by the employer. But what does it mean for this employer or the concept of capitalist in Islam? Is this capitalist like the western capitalist? Or is it another type of capitalist? When we compare, we see that this capitalist is God's 128

Fourth Lecture representative. Again, I am discussing in the Islamic system, not in the Western system, in a system where Islamic laws are implemented, this discussion is included, that this person who has capital, even if he has invested capital in business, he is the representative of God, and his capital is God's capital, not this person's personal capital. This person is a representative of God, he is not allowed to use this capital in any way or any plan or idea that he wants, desires or wishes. For example, we say that to respond to him that the law which says that extravagance is forbidden. The Great God does not like those who are extravagant. (Surely He does not love the extravagant)26. There are many verses in the Qur'an about those who are extravagant. So imagine that I have some of the capital that belongs to the nation, but I am God's representative and I can only implement God's orders and I cannot use this capital for my own benefit or in a wrong way. The only way that there is for me to use this capital is in the way of the nation, in the way of God, in the way of the people. Imagine what the government will do in that system where all the capital is in the hands of the government? This big factory will be handed over to a manager, and says to the new manager, ‘You are my representative. You are my lawyer to protect this big capital and use it in the way of nation.’ In Islam, this kind of reliance is also made on the assumption that a capital has accumulated in the account of a person. This person is God's attorney, and the capital belongs to God, and there are certain ways that a person can use the capital, only in these ways. Therefore, he cannot be extravagant, if he needs only one loaf of bread per day to satiate his hunger, and if he buys two loaves of bread, he has wasted one loaf and this is forbidden, he is an extravagant person. If he needed a three bedroom house and instead he bought a palace, he is wasteful and he has made a mistake. Therefore, you see, assuming that a person has accumulated capital, that person cannot misuse this capital, but has to use it only as a representative of God. A righteous, pure

26

Holy Qur’an, 6:141

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Human Being and God and selfless representative of God will use this nation's capital in the best way to serve the nation. What impression does it give? Based on the fact that this capital belongs to God and this person is God's lawyer, many problems are solved. Because if you try to put a drill on the poppy and calculate the ‘Surplus Value’ etc., you will never find the solution or achieve the result. But Islam comes from the foundation and has solved the case, which is impossible if millions of dollars of nation’s capital is with me, and has determined rules and regulations that I cannot use this capital for my personal benefit, I can spend this capital only and only in the way of God and in the right way.

Endowment This is here where we say that if we want to solve the economic problems, we must consider the philosophical, political and economic infrastructure of Islam together. And there is so much to talk about it that I will just use another word to express myself in economics, and you know that one of the things in Islam is the self-sacrifice that a Muslim sacrifices with his intellectual, educational and because of Islamic upbringing. His goal is not money, but God; his goal is perfection. His property is just a tool. And one of the examples of self-sacrifice shown in Islamic countries and as an example in Iran is the waqf (endowment) issue. One third of Iran's land is ‘waqf’. One third of Iran's arable land has been dedicated to Iran's arable lands (I don't mean deserts). That is, some people have come and settled and developed these lands and then dedicated them to collective endowment. Socialism wants to take people's land by force, but Islam creates a method that this person works with all his energy and strength to develop the arable land, and after he does it, he hands this land over to God or submits it to society. Waqf is a big world in terms of psychology! There is a huge difference between Islam and the Communism that wants to take this property from people by force and dictatorship. Where it comes and forcefully takes someone's house until his grandchild swears at the person who did this, they publicly curse him, while you see in the endowment, when someone gives endowment, he builds a 130

Fourth Lecture mosque, endows a hospital. When he passes in front of it, he feels peace in his conscience, he feels proud, even if his son, grandson and the posterity pass in front of this mosque or in front of this waqf land, his soul will still be happy and proud that his grandfather or ancestor worked and dedicated this land to society. Therefore, it is a very detailed discussion that I don't want to go into, but I want to say that our Islam has a system that is very flexible and has the ability to motivate, and it allows the authority, the ruler of the time, to change the system according to the expediency of the day according to the Islamic laws which he wants to choose in such a way that the efficiency is maximum and corruption is minimum.

The Basis of Government Passing through this discussion, we will get to the discussion about the basis of government. On the basis of government, I would like to say that it is very clear, in the system of Communism and Marxism, they believe in the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the workers. Of course, they believed that a dictatorship will arise, but after a while, the dictatorial government will disappear. However, in practice, after fifty years, you have observed that not only this dictatorship has not disappeared, but it has strengthened day by day. In the capitalist system of the West, which is based on democracy and democracy means the rule of the majority over the minority. In the first example, dictatorship is a bad thing and in this system it is apparently democracy, so we say long live democracy. But in fact, if we observe it in depth, we will see that this western democracy is also an empty word. Because where some capitalists have power, they have much more facilities than the deprived and oppressed people, and they are able to turn democracy to their advantage. Therefore, democracy has no meaning there. Democracy is only for those who have financial power, because the thing that rules there is money and material power. Leaving aside these words, the rule of the majority over the 131

Human Being and God minority is not acceptable in Islam. What I am saying has a very strong philosophical foundation. In the democratic system, they say that the majority can issue any order that is enforceable. For example, if fifty-one percent of the people came and said that drinking wine is halal (allowed), this becomes halal because the majority has ruled. If they come and say using narcotics is halal27, they say LSD is halal, then no law and nothing can resist them. If one day they come and say that the minority should be killed, is there anything that can stand against them? Never?! That is, in this democratic system, from the philosophical point of view, the majority has the right to do whatever they want, and there are no standards or restrictions to oppose them. They can even subjugate and destroy the minority. Therefore, there are many problems that arise in Western democracy, that are not acceptable from the point of view of human kind and humanity. The eastern dictatorship too, in reality should be given as gift instead of itself. However, in Islam, of course we reject dictatorship. The dictatorship of man over man must be destroyed. I don't want to get into a philosophical discussion which is the basis of our godliness that we don't accept any dictatorship or tyranny. Under this dome28, let's be free from what color it has. Therefore, in front of only one, the only one we worship and bow to is God, the eternal and that's it. God is not a dictator because He has no personal benefit. God the Great means divine laws which means divine standards. One who bows before the great God, worships Him, that is, he bows to the laws of God, he bows down to the divine standards and so he is completely opposed to a dictator who has worldly whims and pleasures. Therefore, in the Islamic system, if we want to speak very dryly, we can say God's dictatorship (of course, when I say God, I mean standards) in addition to popular democracy. That is, our Islam is a combination of two. There is a type of dictatorship which is the dictatorship of criteria which means that no majority For example, in USA, Europe and other western countries, marijuana is now legally allowed and marijuana based products are available in markets without any restrictions. 28 Means the mosque, the place of worship to God. 27

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Fourth Lecture is able to change these criteria. Of course, I don't mean to say that not drinking wine is one of the criteria, but it is one of the rules that if the majority of society gathers and votes that wine is halal, it will not be their right and they cannot issue such a vote. If the majority of the people come and say that the right of a person should be lost and he should be treated as unjust, they will not have the right to do such an action, and this is where we say that the criteria means the Qur’an, which means Sunnah.

The Three Principles of Islamic Government In the discussion related to government, we will briefly mention to you three fundamental principles that the first principle is the human freedom. The second principle of the Qur'an, the Qur'an that we say, or the Qur'an and the Sunnah, means that these are the criteria we are looking for. And the third principle of the Council or Consultation, And take counsel with them in the affair29 and also their rule is to take counsel among themselves30. That is, if you want to describe the government in Islam in the most concise way, we can write these three principles: The first principle of man is based on the freedom of man, that he should not face any dictator or tyrant, except God, who is not a dictator. The Second, accepting the criteria that we have taken from the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and these criteria are unchangeable. Thirdly, within the framework of these transcendental and divine standards, human beings are free. They have Democracy, must solve their own problems with council and consultation. Therefore, we see again that the Islamic government system is a new system, neither the western system nor the eastern system, and all the problems of the two systems have been solved well. And in short, if there is a problem in our society, the problem is from us, not from Islam, not from our school and ideology.

Moving towards Intermediary School of Thought

29 30

Holy Qur’an, 3:159 Holy Qur’an, 42:38

133

Human Being and God I will stop the discussion because it is past time, but I want to draw a conclusion and the conclusion is that which we are witnessing in our own world where on the one hand some people have gone to extremes and some have gone too far, and when we consider the course of the past fifty years, we see that these two poles are approaching a middle direction. Let me give you an example. After the detailed discussions I gave you about property here, when Lenin31 took power in Russia, he completely abolished property and so on. After four years, he came to the conclusion that he could not rule Russia. Therefore, they gradually started to give ownership rights to people, they invited those old capitalists who had fled Russia to return to Russia, and those managers who used to run Russia were brought back to Russia with great privileges. Finally, since 1925, they were able to revive Russia little by little and it even reached a point where in some Russian factories, the managers were given a percentage of the profits of the factory, that is, they paid 5% to 15% of the profits to the factory manager so that the factory manager should work harder for his material benefit and money. In the early days, ownership was not an issue for them, but later we see that during Stalin's time, they were given the right to open a bank account in the bank and have capital money and save this extra money in the bank. The only restriction they imposed for them was that they should not use the money they put in the bank for business or production. But they were free to spend for themselves, for their wife and children, for their pleasure and outing, or for anything else that they can do as they wish32. Therefore, we can see that this system, which is an eastern and communist system, slowly tends to move in the middle. And on the other hand, we see the western system that we are now observing. In the days of 1920s and 1930s, as I said, immigrants went to the west of

31

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924) or Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and political theorist who established the world's first socialist state based on Marxism. Served as the founding head Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924. 32 On November 18, 1986, laws were passed in Soviet Union at that time, which allowed people to start their own industrial production for a specific period.

134

Fourth Lecture America, an absolute Capitalism ruled there. After the great depression in 1930 in USA, the government was forced to make new laws against capitalists. At that time, the main and powerful laws were the laws of monopoly. Many such laws created the tyranny of the big businessmen of the new money (monopoly) who used to embezzle and even started world wars. You have witnessed or some of you may know very well that in America, General Electric and other big companies are called to court every year and they are fined millions of dollars because of this violation of monopoly and other such laws33, and you also see that the insurance provision law, Social Security, etc. were created so that no one remains hungry. So that no one is deprived, oppressed and hungry. Even some western countries like Sweden reached a place where if someone is jobless, they give him some money in terms of social insurance and so to speak, his needs are met. In short, they will not remain hungry. Based on these observation, we see that the capitalist systems are gradually moving towards Socialism and the socialists are moving towards the capitalists. The capitalists are moving towards the socialists, so these two poles are moving towards the center. Because this center is a center based on the innate nature of humans, the natural nature of humans, and this basic nature of humans is exactly our holy Islamic mission. Therefore, these systems as a natural course due to their own experiences will move and attracted towards the School of Islam, whether we want or we don’t want. Whether we are good Muslims or we are bad Muslims. The world and the determinism of the history of the East and the West will move towards this center (Islam), which is the intermediary or moderate School of Thought (And thus We have made you a medium (just) nation).34 Certainly, the time when Imam Mahdi (ajtf) will reappear, that will be the moment when in reality these two major systems have 33 34

Anti-Trust laws Holy Qur’an, 2:143

135

Human Being and God come towards the center and they will automatically feel the truth and mission of Islam, so when an Imam, a great infallible divine leader appears, they will be naturally ready to implement it. In the hope of that day. Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings

136

Appendix

137

List of Verses of Holy Qur’an [In order of citation in the text]

﴾٢٧﴿ ‫﴾ َوا رحلُ رل ُع رقدَ ًة ِّمن ِّل َس ِّاِن‬٢٦﴿ ‫َّس ِِّل َأ رم ِّري‬ ‫﴾ َوي ِّ ر‬٢٥﴿ ‫اْش رح ِِّل َصدر ِّري‬ َ ‫قَا َل َر ِّب ر‬ ‫ي َ رفقَهُوا قَ رو ِِّل‬ He said: O my Lord! Expand my breast for me, And make my affair easy to me, And loose the knot from my tongue, (That) they may understand my word [20:25-28]

‫وح ِّم رن َأ رم ِّر َر ِّّب َو َما ُأو ِّت ُيُت ِّم َن الر ِّع ر ِّْل ا اَّل قَ ِّل ًيل‬ ُ ‫َوي رَسأَلُون ََك ع َِّن ُّالروحِّ ۖ قُلِّ ُّالر‬ ِ

And they ask you about the spirit. Say: The spirit is one of the commands of my Lord, and you are not given aught of knowledge but a little [17:85]

ِّ ‫َ َُل ُم َع ِّقبَاتٌ ِّمن ب َ ر ِّْي يَدَ ير ِّه َو ِّم رن َخ رل ِّف ِّه َ رَي َف ُظون َ ُه ِّم رن َأ رم ِّر ا‬ ‫اَّلل ََّل يُغ ِّ َُّي َما ِّبقَ رو ٍم َح ا َّٰت يُغ ِّ َُّيوا َما‬ َ ‫اَّلل ۗ ا ان ا‬ ِ ٍ‫اَّلل ِّبقَ رو ٍم ُسو ًءا فَ َل َم َر اد َ َُل ۚ َو َما لَهُم ِّمن ُدو ِّن ِّه ِّمن َوال‬ ُ ‫ِّبأَن ُف ِّسهِّ رم ۗ َوا َذا َأ َرا َد ا‬ ِ For his sake there are angels following one another, before him and behind him, who guard him by Allah's commandment; surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition; and when Allah intends evil to a people, there is no averting it, and besides Him they have no protector. [13:11]

ُّ ُ ‫ُك ن َ رف ٍس َذائِّقَ ُة الر َم رو ِّت ۗ َوان ا َما ت َُوف ا رو َن ُأ ُج َور ُ رُك ي َ رو َم الر ِّق َيا َم ِّة ۖ فَ َمن ُز رح ِّز َح ع َِّن الناا ِّر َو ُأ رد ِّخ َل الر َجنا َة فَقَدر‬ ِ ‫فَ َاز ۗ َو َما الر َح َيا ُة ادلُّ نر َيا ا اَّل َمتَا ُع الرغ ُُرو ِّر‬ ِ

Every soul shall taste of death, and you shall only be paid fully your reward on the resurrection day; then whoever is removed far away from the fire and is made to enter the garden he indeed has attained the object; and the life of this world is nothing but a provision of vanities. [3:185]

ِّ ‫فَا َذا َس اوير ُت ُه َون َ َف رخ ُت ِّفي ِّه ِّمن ُّر‬ ‫وِح فَقَ ُعوا َ َُل َساجِّ ِّد َين‬ ِ 139

Human Being and God So when I have made him complete and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down making obeisance to him. [15:29]

‫َو َما ُأبَرِّئُ ن َ رف ِِّس ۚ ا ان النا رف َس َ ََل ام َار ٌة ِِّب ُّلسو ِّء ا اَّل َما َر ِّح َم َر ِّّب ۚ ا ان َر ِّّب غَ ُف ٌور ار ِّح ٌي‬ ِ ِ ِ

And I do not declare myself free, most surely (man's) self is wont to command (him to do) evil, except such as my Lord has had mercy on, surely my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful. [12:53]

‫َو ََّل ُأ رق ِّس ُم ِِّبلنا رف ِّس الل ا اوا َم ِّة‬ Nay! I swear by the self-accusing soul. [75:2]

‫﴾ رارجِّ ِّعي ا َ َٰل َرب ِِّّك َر ِّاض َي ًة ام رر ِّضيا ًة‬٢٧﴿ ‫ََي َأياُتُ َا النا رف ُس الر ُم رط َمئِّنا ُة‬ ِ

O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, pleased and pleasing! [89:27-28]

‫فَأَلرهَ َمهَا فُ ُج َورهَا َوتَ رق َواهَا‬ Then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it; [91:8]

ِّ ‫قَالَ رت ُر ُسلُهُ رم َأ ِِّف ا‬ ‫الس َم َاو ِّات َو ر َاَل رر ِّض ۖ يَدر ُعو ُ رُك ِّل َي رغ ِّف َر لَ ُُك ِّمن ُذنُوب ُ رُِّك َويُ َؤ ِّخ َر ُ رُك ا َ َٰل‬ ‫اَّلل شَ ٌّك فَا ِّط ِّر ا‬ ِ ‫ر‬ ‫ون َأن ت َُصدُّوَنَ َ اَعا ََك َن ي َ رع ُبدُ أ َِب ُؤَنَ فَأْتُوَنَ ب ُِّسل َط ٍان‬ ٌ َ ‫َأ َجلٍ ُّم َس ًّمى ۚ قَالُوا ا رن َأ ُ رنُت ا اَّل ب‬ َ ُ‫ََش ِّمثرلُنَا تُ ِّريد‬ ِ ِ ٍ‫ُّمبِّْي‬ Their apostles said: Is there doubt about Allah, the Maker of the heavens and the earth? He invites you to forgive you your faults and to respite you till an appointed term. They said: You are nothing but mortals like us; you wish to turn us away from what our fathers used to worship; bring us therefore some clear authority. [14:10]

ِّ ‫ََي َصا ِّح َ َِّب‬ ‫اَّلل الر َوا ِّحدُ الرقَه ُاار‬ ُ ‫ون خ ر ٌَّي َأ ِّم ا‬ َ ُ‫الس رج ِّن َأ َأ رر َِببٌ ُّمتَ َف ِّرق‬ O my two mates of the prison! are sundry lords better or Allah the One, the Supreme? [12:39]

‫ون ِّ ََلن ُف ِّسهِّ رم ن َ رف ًعا‬ ُ ‫الس َم َاو ِّات َو ر َاَل رر ِّض ُقلِّ ا‬ َ ‫اَّلل ۚ قُ رل َأفَ ااَّت رَذ ُُت ِّمن ُدو ِّن ِّه َأ رو ِّل َيا َء ََّل ي َ رم ِّل ُك‬ ‫ُق رل َمن ار ُّب ا‬ ُّ ‫َضا ۚ قُ رل ه رَل ي رَس تَ ِّوي ر َاَل ر ََع ٰى َوالر َب ِّص ُّي َأ رم ه رَل ت َ رس تَ ِّوي‬ ُ ‫الظلُ َم‬ ‫ْش ََك َء‬ ًّ َ ‫َو ََّل‬ َ ُ ‫ات َوالنُّ ُور ۗ َأ رم َج َعلُوا ِّ ا َِّّلل‬ 140

List of Verses of Holy Qur’an

‫َش ٍء َوه َُو الر َوا ِّحدُ الرقَه ُاار‬ ُ ‫َخلَ ُقوا َك َخ رل ِّق ِّه فَتَشَ اب َ َه الر َخ رل ُق عَلَْير ِّ رم ۚ قُلِّ ا‬ ‫اَّلل خَا ِّل ُق ُ ُِّك َ ر‬ Say: Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?-- Say: Allah. Say: Do you take then besides Him guardians who do not control any profit or harm for themselves? Say: Are the blind and the seeing alike? Or can the darkness and the light be equal? Or have they set up with Allah associates who have created creation like His, so that what is created became confused to them? Say: Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Supreme. [13:16]

‫ون‬ َ ‫َوأي َ ٌة لاهُ ُم ر َاَل رر ُض الر َم ريتَ ُة َأ رحيَ رينَاهَا َو َأخ َرر رجنَا ِّمْنر َا َحبًّا فَ ِّم رن ُه يَأْ ُ ُُك‬ And a sign to them is the dead earth: We give life to it and bring forth from it grain so they eat of it. [36:33]

ٍ ‫َو َج َع رلنَا ِّفْيَا َجن ا‬ ‫﴾ ِّل َيأْ ُ ُُكوا ِّمن ثَ َم ِّر ِّه َو َما َ َِّعلَ رت ُه‬٣٤﴿ ‫ون‬ ِّ ‫ات ِّمن ا َِّّنيلٍ َو َأ رعنَ ٍاب َوفَ اج ررَنَ ِّفْيَا ِّم َن الر ُع ُي‬ ‫﴾ ُس رب َح َان ا ِّاَّلي َخلَ َق ر َاَل رز َو َاج ُُكاهَا ِّم اما تُنب ُِّت ر َاَل رر ُض َو ِّم رن َأن ُف ِّسهِّ رم‬٣٥﴿ ‫ون‬ َ ‫َأير ِّد ِّهي رم ۖ َأفَ َل ي رَش ُك ُر‬ ‫﴾ َوالشا رم ُس‬٣٧﴿ ‫ون‬ َ ‫﴾ َوأي َ ٌة لاهُ ُم الل ا ري ُل ن َ رسلَخُ ِّمنر ُه الْنا َ َار فَا َذا ُُه ُّم رظ ِّل ُم‬٣٦﴿ ‫ون‬ َ ‫َو ِّم اما ََّل ي َ رعلَ ُم‬ ِ ‫ون‬ ِّ ‫﴾ َوالرقَ َم َر قَد رارَنَ ُه َمنَا ِّز َل َح ا َّٰت عَا َد ََكلر ُع رر ُج‬٣٨﴿ ‫َ رَت ِّري ِّل ُم رس تَقَ ٍر لاهَا ۚ َذَٰ ِّ َِل تَ رق ِّد ُير الر َع ِّزي ِّز الر َع ِّل ِّي‬ ٍ َ َ‫ُك ِِّف ف‬ ٌّ ُ ‫﴾ ََّل الشا رم ُس يَن َب ِّغي لَهَا َأن تُدر رِّكَ الرقَ َم َر َو ََّل الل ا ري ُل َساب ُِّق الْنا َا ِّر ۚ َو‬٣٩﴿ ‫الرقَ ِّد ِّمي‬ ‫َل‬ ‫ون‬ َ ‫ي رَس َب ُح‬ And We make therein gardens of palms and grapevines and We make springs to flow forth in it, That they may eat of the fruit thereof, and their hands did not make it; will they not then be grateful? Glory be to Him Who created pairs of all things, of what the earth grows, and of their kind and of what they do not know. And a sign to them is the night: We draw forth from it the day, then lo! they are in the dark; And the sun runs on to a term appointed for it; that is the ordinance of the Mighty, the Knowing. And (as for) the moon, We have ordained for it stages till it becomes again as an old dry palm branch. Neither is it allowable to the sun that it should overtake the moon, nor can the night outstrip the day; and all float on in a sphere. [36:34-40]

ۖ ‫ِس َخ رلقَ ُه‬ َ َ ‫﴾ َو‬٧٧﴿ ‫َأ َولَ رم يَ َر راَّل َنس ُان َأَنا َخلَ رقنَا ُه ِّمن ن رُّط َف ٍة فَا َذا ه َُو خ َِّص ٌي ُّمب ٌِّْي‬ َ ِّ َ ‫َض َب لَنَا َمث ًَل َون‬ ِ ِ ‫ِّك َخ رل ٍق عَ ِّل ٌي‬ ِّ ُ ‫﴾ قُ رل ُ رَي ِّيْيَا ا ِّاَّلي أَنشَ أَهَا َأ او َل َم ار ٍة ۖ َوه َُو ب‬٧٨﴿ ‫ِه َر ِّم ٌي‬ َ ِّ ‫قَا َل َمن ُ رَي ِِّي الر ِّع َظا َم َو‬ 141

Human Being and God

‫﴾ َأ َولَي َرس ا ِّاَّلي‬٨٠﴿ ‫ون‬ ِّ َ ‫﴾ ا ِّاَّلي َج َع َل لَ ُُك ِّم َن الشا َج ِّر ر َاَلخ‬٧٩﴿ َ ُ‫رَض َنَ ًرا فَا َذا َأ ُنُت ِّمنر ُه تُو ِّقد‬ ِ ‫الس َم َاو ِّات َو ر َاَل رر َض ِّبقَا ِّد ٍر عَ َ َٰل َأن َ رَيلُ َق ِّمثرلَهُم ۚ ب َ َ َٰل َوه َُو الرخ اَل ُق الر َع ِّل ُي‬ ‫َخلَ َق ا‬ Does not man see that We have created him from the small seed? Then lo! he is an open disputant. And he strikes out a likeness for Us and forgets his own creation. Says he: Who will give life to the bones when they are rotten? Say: He will give life to them Who brought them into existence at first, and He is cognizant of all creation. He Who has made for you the fire (to burn) from the green tree, so that with it you kindle (fire). Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Yea! and He is the Creator (of all), the Knower. [36:77-81]

ُ ‫﴾ فَ ُس رب َح َان ا ِّاَّلي ِّب َي ِّد ِّه َملَ ُك‬٨٢﴿ ‫ون‬ ‫َش ٍء‬ ُ ‫ان ا َما َأ رم ُر ُه ا َذا َأ َرا َد شَ يرئًا َأن ي َ ُقو َل َ َُل ُكن فَ َي ُك‬ ‫وت ُ ُِّك َ ر‬ ِ ِ ‫ون‬ َ ‫َوالَ ري ِّه تُ رر َج ُع‬ ِ His command, when He intends anything, is only to say to it: Be, so it is. Therefore glory be to Him in Whose hand is the kingdom of all things, and to Him you shall be brought back. [36:82-83]

‫َو َك َ َٰذ ِّ َِل َج َع رلنَ ُ راُك ُأ ام ًة َو َس ًطا ِّلتَ ُكونُوا ُشهَدَ ا َء عَ ََل النا ِّاس‬ And thus We have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness to the people [2:143]

ُّ ُ ‫ُك ن َ رف ٍس ِّب َما َك َسبَ رت َر ِّهينَ ٌة‬ Every soul is held in pledge for what it earns. [74:38]

‫َو َأن لاي َرس ِّل رل َنس ِّان ا اَّل َما َس َع ٰى‬ ِ ِ

And that man shall have nothing but what he strives for. [53:39]

ٍ َ‫ات َوغَ ر َّي َم رع ُروش‬ ٍ َ‫ات ام رع ُروش‬ ٍ ‫َوه َُو ا ِّاَّلي أَنشَ أَ َجن ا‬ ‫ات َوالنا رخ َل َو االز رر َع ُم رخ َت ِّلفًا أُ ُ ُُك ُه َو االزير ُتو َن َو ُّالر ام َان‬ ‫ّسفُوا ۚ ان ا ُه ََّل ُ َِّي ُّب‬ ِّ ‫ُمتَشَ اِبِّ ًا َوغَ ر َّي ُمتَشَ ا ِّب ٍه ۚ ُ ُُكوا ِّمن ثَ َم ِّر ِّه ا َذا َأثر َم َر َوأتُوا َحقا ُه ي َ رو َم َح َصا ِّد ِّه ۖ َو ََّل ت ُ ر‬ ِ ِ ‫ّسِّف َْي‬ ِّ ‫الر ُم ر‬ And He it is Who produces gardens (of vine), trellised and untrellised, and palms and seed-produce of which the fruits are of various sorts,

142

List of Verses of Holy Qur’an and olives and pomegranates, like and unlike; eat of its fruit when it bears fruit, and pay the due of it on the day of its reaping, and do not act extravagantly; surely He does not love the extravagant. [6:141]

ِّ ‫فَ ِّب َما َر ر َْح ٍة ِّم َن ا‬ ‫نت فَ ًّظا غَ ِّليظَ الرقَ رل ِّب ََّلن َفضُّ وا ِّم رن َح رو ِّ َِل ۖ فَاع ُرف َعْنر ُ رم‬ َ ‫نت لَهُ رم ۖ َولَ رو ُك‬ َ ‫اَّلل ِّل‬ ِّ ‫ُك عَ ََل ا‬ ‫َو راس تَ رغ ِّف رر لَهُ رم َوشَ ا ِّو رر ُ رُه ِِّف ر َاَل رم ِّر ۖ فَا َذا ع ََز رم َت فَتَ َو ا ر‬ ‫اَّلل ُ َِّي ُّب الر ُمتَ َو ِّ ُِّك َْي‬ َ ‫اَّلل ۚ ا ان ا‬ ِ ِ

Thus it is due to mercy from Allah that you deal with them gently, and had you been rough, hard hearted, they would certainly have dispersed from around you; pardon them therefore and ask pardon for them, and take counsel with them in the affair; so when you have decided, then place your trust in Allah; surely Allah loves those who trust. [3:159]

‫ون‬ ‫الص َل َة َو َأ رم ُر ُ رُه ُش َور ٰى بَيرْنَ ُ رم َو ِّم اما َر َز رقنَ ُ ر‬ ‫َو ا ِّاَّل َين راس تَ َجابُوا ِّل َر ِّ ِِّب رم َو َأقَا ُموا ا‬ َ ‫اُه يُن ِّف ُق‬ And those who respond to their Lord and keep up prayer, and their rule is to take counsel among themselves, and who spend out of what We have given them. [42:38]

143

List of Hadithes [in order of citation in text]

،‫ ب َ رل َأ رم ٌر ب َ ر َْي َأ رم َر ري ِّن‬،‫ ََّل َج ر َْب َو ََّل تَ رف ِّو َيض‬:‫الس َل ُم َأن ا ُه قَا َل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫الصا ِّد ِّق عَلَ ري ِّه ا‬ Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) said. ‘No compulsion, no authorization, but a matter between two things. [Al-Kulayni, Al-Kafi, vol.1, p. 160]

‫ ان الناس مسلطون عَل أمواهلم وأنفسهم‬: ‫قال صَل هللا عليه وأَل‬ Prophet of God (pbuh) said: People have authority over their property and lives. [Al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol.2, p. 273, hadith # 7, quoted from alMakasib of Sheikh Ansari, p.84]

‫ َّل َضر وَّل َضار ِف اَّلسلم‬: ‫قال صَل هللا عليه وأَل‬ Prophet of God (pbuh) said: In the religion of Islam, you can neither harm yourself nor harm others. [Al-Kulayni, al-Kafi, vol. 5, p. 292]

145

List of Names Abdul Karim Qasim

Jalal al-din Muhammad Rumi (Maulana Rumi)

Albert Einstein Allameh Jafari

Mohammad

Jamal Abdul Nasser

Taqi

Jawaharlal Nehru

Allameh Sayyid Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaei

Jean-Paul Sartre

Aristotle

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Stalin)

Ayatullah Taleqani

Sayyid

John F. Kennedy

Mahmud

Josip Broz (Tito)

Bertrand Russell

Karl Marx

David Hume

Khwaje Shamsuddin Mohammad Hafize-e Shirazi (Hafiz Shirazi)

Euclid Fariduddin Attar

Murtaza Mutahhari

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Fidel Castro) Georg Friedrich Riemann

Musa Sadr al-Din (Imam Musa Sadr)

Bernhard

al-Sadr

George Berkeley

Nikolai Lobachevsky

Georges Politzer

Plato

Imam Ali (as)

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

Imam Husayn (as)

Prophet Jesus (as) (Isa)

Imam Jafar Sadiq (as)

Prophet Moses (as) (Musa)

Imam Khomeini

René Descartes

Imam Mahdi (ajtf)

Sigmund Freud

Immanuel Kant

Sukarno

Isaac Newton

Vladimir (Lenin)

147

Ilyich

Ivanovich

Ulyanov

Index A

C

Abdul Karim Qasim, 126 absolute determinism, 99, 106, 111 absolute free will, 10, 98, 99, 106, 111 absolute knowledge, 38, 39 absolute truth, 88 absolutism, 12, 90, 96 Afghanistan, 117, 121 Africa, 114 Algeria, 106, 107 Al-Kafi, 99, 106, 145 Al-Kulayni, 99, 106, 145 Allameh Mohammad Taqi Jafari, 109 Allameh Tabatabaei, 61, 88 America, 70, 75, 78, 114, 116, 117, 118, 121, 124, 135 American government, 124 Aristotle, 56, 59, 62 atomic bombs, 115 Attar, 100 authority, 12, 111, 115, 121, 123, 128, 131, 140, 145 Ayatullah Taleqani, 3

calculation of probabilities, 32 capacitor, 34 capital, 113, 115, 116, 117, 126, 128, 134 Capitalism, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 71, 78, 83, 105, 107, 113, 115, 119, 121, 122, 127, 128, 135 capitalist country, 114 Capitalist School, 10, 11 Capitalist system, 2, 79, 115 Castro, 120 Chemistry, 55, 91 China, 79, 119 Christianity, 98 circle of existence, 61 class difference, 114, 118 colonialism, 10, 119 colonization, 114 Commanding Soul, 20, 112 Communal School, 10 Communism, 2, 9, 10, 12, 71, 78, 80, 83, 105, 106, 107, 115, 117, 119, 122, 130, 131 Communist and Marxist System, 11 Communist Party, 118 Companions of Righteousness, 108 Composing, 49 Consultation, 12, 133 creator of knowledge, 50 Cuba, 120 Czechoslovakia, 117

B balanced school, 108 Beheshte Zahra, 3 Bell Laboratories, 3 Berkeley, 57, 83 Bertrand Russell, 69, 81 biology, 19, 56 bodily dream, 26 Bound ownership, 123 Büchner, 46 Bukhara, 117

D Das Kapital, 67, 113 definition of God, 51, 92

149

Human Being and God degree of free will, 109 Dehlavieh, 3 democracy, 11, 12, 131, 132 Descartes, 60, 61, 62 determinism, 10, 97, 98, 99, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 123, 135 Determinism and Free will, 97 determinism value, 111 Determinists, 111 dictatorship, 11, 130, 131, 132 dimensions of space and time, 31 dimensions of time and space, 39, 92 divine government, 11 divine person, 100 Divine Revelation, 41 divine signs, 48 divine stages, 19 Dr. Chamran, 1, 2, 3, 95 Dr. Mustafa Chamran, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 dream, 8, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 45 dream of soul, 27

Euclid's philosophy, 64 existence beyond matter, 90 Existentialism, 98 experimental science, 36 exploitation, 10, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 128 extrasensory perception, 37 extremism, 124

F five senses, 8, 27, 56, 58, 65, 66, 69, 75 France, 32, 38, 60, 83, 84, 98 Free market system, 115 Free Will, 97, 109 freedom of man, 133 Freedom of trade, 113 Free-willers, 111 frequency, 34, 35, 57, 84 frequency band, 35 Freud, 27, 28 fu’ad, 75

G

E

Georges Politzer, 84 Germans, 98 Germany, 83, 114 God worshipers, 53, 86 God Worshipping Socialists, 106 God's capital, 129 God's creativity, 26 God's existence, 8, 55, 67 God's justice, 20 God's knowledge, 8, 26, 55 God's representative, 17, 129 government bureaucracy, 126 governmental exploitation, 118

Eastern bloc, 119 Eastern Bloc countries, 115 Eastern European countries, 117 economic basis, 9, 11, 12, 78, 105, 112, 121 economic foundation, 78 Economic Infrastructure, 112 Egypt, 3, 55, 106, 126 Einstein, 25, 42, 66, 88, 92, 93, 95, 96 Einstein's era, 93 electromagnetic waves, 57 electrons, 34 England, 83, 114 Euclid, 59, 63, 64, 65 Euclidean geometry, 59, 63, 66

H hadith, 92, 123, 145 Hafiz, 61, 76

150

Index halal, 132, 133 Hazrat Musa, 54, 55 Holy Qur’an, 1, 8, 18, 19, 21, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 61, 105, 107, 123, 129, 133, 135, 139 human conscience, 27, 48, 49 human heart, 47, 48, 67 human knowledge, 26, 69, 81 human mind, 27, 54, 83 human nature, 7, 8, 46, 47, 50 human personality, 20, 28, 109, 123 human soul, 7, 10, 23, 25, 26 human talent, 118 human thought, 58 Hume, 57, 83 hydrogen, 52, 69, 81, 82 hypnosis, 33, 38, 39 hypnotism, 32

40, 41 Inspirational Soul, 21, 112 intellectualism, 61 Intelligent Soul, 21 Intermediary and Moderate school, 10 intermediary school, 12 Intermediate School, 77 Iran, 3, 5, 6, 8, 84, 85, 106, 115, 118, 120, 125, 127, 130 Iraq, 85, 126 Irregular Warfare Forces, 3 Islamic economic system, 122 Islamic economics, 113, 123, 128 Islamic government, 11, 79, 125, 126, 127, 133 Islamic government system, 11, 127, 133 Islamic jurisprudence, 79 Islamic jurisprudents, 11, 126 Islamic laws, 125, 129, 131 Islamic philosophy, 17, 61, 127 Islamic Revolution of Iran, 2 Islamic School, 2, 11, 86 Islamic School of Thought, 2, 86 Islamic system, 11, 79, 106, 119, 122, 129, 132

I idealism, 9, 10, 12, 57, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 98, 105, 106 idealists, 10, 83, 86, 88, 96, 106 illumination, 9, 40, 41, 45, 47, 50, 52, 56, 61, 66, 76 Imam Ali, 23, 24, 100 Imam Husayn, 23 Imam Jafar Sadiq, 92, 99, 106, 145 Imam Khomeini, 3, 5, 85, 127 Imam Mahdi, 5, 135 Imam Musa Sadr, 3, 107 Imam of the Age, 5 individual ownership, 115 infinite God, 52, 53, 56 infinity, 55, 77, 111, 112 inherent nature, 47 inner radiance, 50 inspiration, 8, 21, 37, 40, 41, 45, 47, 52, 56, 67, 75, 76 inspiration and illumination, 8,

J Jamal Abdul Nasser, 106, 120 Jean-Paul Sartre, 98

K Kant, 57, 83 Kennedy, 75 knowing human being, 8, 18, 45 knowledge of the heart, 9 Kremlin Palace, 116

L la zarar, 123

151

Human Being and God law of attraction, 87, 91, 92 law of gravity, 87, 88, 91, 92 Lebanon, 3, 5, 6, 85, 107, 120 leftists, 89 Lenin, 84, 134 Lobachevsky, 65 logic, 7, 9, 17, 29, 47, 50, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 67, 68, 75, 89, 97, 109

modern physics, 57, 87, 95 monopoly, 135 monotheism, 17, 79 Monotheists, 86 movement for downtrodden, 3 muddy human being, 19 Muhammad Taqi Jafari, 13 Mujahedin Khalq, 85, 108 Mujtahidin, 126, 127 Mumineen, 107 Mutahhari, 61, 62, 63, 84, 86, 88 mysticism, 76, 101, 108, 109

M magnetic waves, 96 malakut, 10, 111 manifestation of God, 17, 19, 20, 23, 25, 31, 40 Mantiq ut Tayr, 100 Marx, 67, 78, 84, 113, 114, 115, 121 Marxism, 68, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 89, 91, 98, 121, 131, 134 Marxist, 11, 68, 70, 75, 78, 84, 107, 108, 113, 120, 122 Marxists, 67, 68, 76, 80, 84, 86, 89, 90, 91, 93, 96, 97, 112 material objects, 87, 92 material sciences, 9, 56 materialism, 9, 10, 12, 45, 46, 67, 76, 80, 83, 84, 86, 89, 105 Materialist School, 80, 86 materialistic philosophy, 68, 76 materialistic psychologists, 30 mathematics, 10, 30, 50, 55, 58, 63, 65, 66, 94, 111 Mathnavi, 8 Maulana Rumi, 8, 52, 55, 56, 60, 66, 99 Mediums, 37 mental knowledge, 87, 91, 106 metaphysical, 2, 9, 12, 17, 68, 70, 80, 90, 96, 97 Middle East, 3, 121 moderate School of Thought, 135

N NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 3 nature of humans, 135 Nazis, 98 Nehru, 120 Neither East nor West, 119 Nevada, 124 New Mexico, 124 Newton, 87, 88, 94, 95 Newtonian mechanics, 94 Newton's law, 95 no harm, 123, 125 non-existent, 49 nothing else, 68, 70, 80, 82, 83, 108

O oppressed people, 116, 131 Originality of Matter, 80, 105 otherwise nothing, 69, 70 our philosophy, 17, 20, 21, 61, 77 Ownership, 12, 122, 123 oxygen, 51, 52, 69, 81, 82

P Palestine, 120 Palestinian resistance, 121

152

Index Q

parapsychology, 8, 32, 33, 45, 82 personal ownership, 124 philosophical basis, 9, 78, 95 philosophical blackmail, 86 philosophical foundation, 78, 80, 84, 105, 112, 123, 132 philosophical truth, 55 philosophy of silence, 40 photon, 24 Physics of Relativity, 88, 95 physiology, 19, 56 Planck, 87 Plato, 56, 83 Pleased Soul, 22, 100, 111, 112 Pleasing Soul, 22, 23, 100, 111, 112 Poland, 117 Politburo, 117 Political and Governmental Basis, 11 political basis, 105 political foundation, 78 political or governmental base, 78, 112 predestination, 10, 97, 98, 100, 106, 109, 122 Principle of Consultation, 12 Principle of human freedom, 11 Principle of Qur'an and Sunnah, 12 principle of the Council, 133 production, 10, 11, 113, 115, 118, 134 proletariat, 11, 12, 131 Prophet Jesus, 26 Prophet Moses, 8 Prophet Muhammad, 12, 48, 78, 123 protons, 34 Psychics, 37 psychology, 32, 45, 56, 82, 130

qalb, 75 Quantum Mechanics, 88, 109 Quchan, 118 Quds, 125

R radio transmitter, 34 Realism, 9, 12, 61, 88, 105 Reasoners, 60 relationship with God, 41 relativity, 10, 42, 66, 88, 90, 91, 93, 96, 106 religious endowment, 11 revelation, 37, 38, 41, 56 Riemann, 64, 65 Riemannian geometry, 64, 65 rightists, 89 Rumi, 8, 53, 54, 55, 61, 76

S Samarkand, 117 Satisfying Soul, 22 Saudi Arabia, 108 School of Capitalism, 105 School of Islam, 9, 78, 135 School of Thought of Islam, 105 science and philosophy, 9, 47, 69, 81 scientific method, 75, 81 scientific reason, 51, 62 Scientific Socialists, 67 scientific system, 32 Scientific Theory, 42 Self-Reproaching Soul, 21, 111 shepherd, 8, 54, 55, 56 Socialism, 71, 80, 106, 107, 119, 125, 126, 127, 130, 135 South America, 114 Soviet Russia, 70, 79, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 134

153

Human Being and God space, 31, 34, 46, 66, 88, 92 special wavelength, 57 speed of light, 94, 95, 96 Spiritual communication, 37 spiritual dream, 28 spiritual journey, 76, 100 spiritual joy, 76, 100 spiritual relationship, 41 Stages of Soul, 20 Stalin, 89, 134 story of the elephant, 53 Sukarno, 120 Sunnah, 12, 133 supernatural, 68, 70, 80, 90 superpowers, 115 Surah Ya Seen, 47, 50, 66 surplus products, 114 Surplus Value, 114, 121, 122, 128 Sweden, 135 sweeping, 35 Syria, 120

third world, 119, 120 Three Kinds of Dream, 26 Tito, 119 Tradition of Myrobalan Fruit, 92 Tranquil Soul, 21, 22, 100, 112

U Ukraine, 118 Unity of Soul and Spirit, 23 University of California, Berkeley, 3 unseen world, 1, 8, 9, 17, 21, 24, 42, 45, 67, 75, 90 Uzbekistan, 117

W waqf, 11, 130 wave, 33, 35, 36 Western bloc, 119 Western capitalist system, 115 Western system, 119, 126, 129 Wise Soul, 21 world of philosophy, 81, 82, 84 worshippers of God, 67, 69

T tahjir, 125 Tashkent, 117 tasleet, 123 Tawheed Center, 7 telepathy, 8, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 45, 81 Texas A & M University, 3 The Conference of Birds, 100 The Philosophy of Realization, 61 theory of relativity, 88, 93, 96 thinking and reasoning, 8, 58

Y Yuri Gagarin, 46

Z zakat, 122 Zionism, 121

154

Human Being and God is collection of four inspiring lectures by Martyr Dr. Mustafa Chamran. Delivered in a simple, scientific and logical manner, Dr. Chamran explains identity of Human Being and his relationship with God and universe. In a philosophical style with practical examples, he explains basis of human identity, stages of human soul, spirit, kinds of dreams, telepathy, spiritual communication, inspiration, illumination, revelation, unseen world, metaphysics, relativity, nature of scientific knowledge, laws and philosophy, definition of God, determinism and free will, Qur’anic style of awakening human being, the philosophical, economic and political basis of schools of thought, communism, capitalism, Islam and various ways to understand the difference between Islam and other schools of thought.