(During a walk)
Respected Doctor Khalifah Rasheed-ud-Din, Assistant Surgeon, mentioned the prosperous past of Farrukhabad and its downfall and destruction, and their palaces becoming ruins.
Upon this the Promised Messiah (as) said:
It was the practice in the time of earlier kings that they would always have some godly people in their courts as well. Kings would work in consultation with them and would benefit from their prayers. This is not the case anymore. The condition of these Muslims has also become similar to that of the Children of Israel. In consequence of their evil deeds, God had abandoned them [the Israelites] too and they would not get any help [from God]. The same is happening nowadays. God Himself has pledged to help and assist Islam but there should be some [true] Muslim. The Muslims, in fact, are themselves becoming the target of God’s wrath and punishment. How can they possibly be helped [by God]?
These few Muslim states of India which became the target of God’s wrath would certainly have been safeguarded and helped by God if there had been even a little piety left in them. This punishment and decline that became their lot was the result of their own evil deeds. Consider how the Israelites faced defeat even in the presence of Moses (as). The reason for that, too, was that their own condition was not fit to attract Divine help. In fact, Moses (as) had already told them not to fight at that time as neither the opportunity was right nor had the time yet arrived when they should receive Divine help.
Salah-ud-Din was blessed with good fortune. He also observed Salat [obligatory Prayers] regularly. Therefore, God Almighty also helped him and conferred victory upon him in the most difficult of times and during the attacks of his opponents. The fact is that when a nation becomes corrupt and, turning away from God, leans towards the world and drowns itself in foul deeds, sin, and transgression, Allah the Exalted gives another nation dominion upon it by His own design.
The Right of a Mother
A Jama’at member inquired in his letter that his mother was displeased with his wife and wanted him to divorce her while he had no complaint against his wife—what should he do?
The Promised Messiah (as) said:
A mother’s right is very great and her obedience is obligatory, but one should first inquire if there is something else behind her displeasure that may release him, under the command of God, from such obedience of his mother. For instance, if the mother’s displeasure is because of some religious reason or because of her [daughter-in-law] observing Salat and Fasting, in such a case there is no need to obey the mother. But, in the absence of any such religiously lawful exception, she is liable for divorce.
The fact is that some women cause grief to their mother-in-law only out of mischief. They abuse, harass, and torment them even in trivial matters. A mother does not become displeased with her son’s wife without a cause. In fact, the mother is the one who is most desirous of the success of her son’s married life. She has special interest in it. She gets her son married—praying all the while—spending thousands of rupees with great eagerness. How can it even be imagined that she would quarrel with her son’s wife without a cause and desire to ruin his household?
In such disputes, it is generally observed that often it is the mother who is in the right. It is also the ignorance and foolishness of the son that he says that his mother is displeased [with his wife] but that he is not. When his mother is upset, why does he say such words of disrespect that he is not displeased while his mother is? This is not a case of dispute between co-wives. If there is no religious reason for the dispute between his mother and his wife, why does he show such disrespect?
If there is some other reason or basis, it should be immediately rectified. If the mother is displeased for some issues concerning household expenditure and if he gives allowance to his wife for the household expenditure, then it is necessary that he should have expenses managed through his mother and hand over the entire management of the household to his mother. He should not make his mother dependent and subservient to his wife.
Some women appear to be very gentle on the surface, but deep down they sting grievously. Therefore, the cause [of friction] should be removed and the reason for the displeasure should be addressed, and the mother should be made happy. One should consider that if one makes the effort, even lions, wolves, and other beasts can be tamed and can become harmless; friendships can be cultivated among enemies if one makes peace. Then what is the reason that the mother should be kept displeased?
Difficulties Faced by Co-Wives
The Promised Messiah (as) said:
A man had two wives. After a dispute between the two, one of them left for her parents’ home without the permission of her husband. The person came to me and asked if he should divorce her? I thought that these are very delicate matters and a co-wife has to endure rather great hardships. It has been seen that some women commit suicide because of their difficulties. Just as an insane person is not held accountable for his actions, similarly such women also are not accountable, and they deserve mercy because the difficulties that co-wives face can drive them to the brink of insanity.
The fact was that this person was himself a little more inclined towards his second wife and that wife also abused and pestered the poor woman. Eventually, she could not bear those hardships and felt compelled to leave. The man himself admitted that this, indeed, was the case and retracted his decision [to divorce her].
God Himself forgives such faults as well. Thus, He says in the Quran:
وَ لَا تُحَمِّلْنَا مَا لَا طَاقَۃَ لَنَا بِہٖ1
If something exceeds the human capacity and capability to bear, God, too, overlooks it.
Look at the incident of Hagar (ra) which was also of a similar nature. She was the grandmother of the believers. The first time when she was expelled from her home, the angel called her and consoled her greatly and treated her benevolently, but when she was expelled the second time, her co-wife told him to leave her at a place where there was no food or water. Her objective was to let her [Hagar (ra)] die and perish this way. Abraham (as) did not wish to do this, but God told him that, okay, do as she desires and accept what Sarah says.
The fact is that God willed to manifest His might. This incident is recorded in detail in the Torah. When the child started crying due to extreme thirst, Hagar (ra) kept running to the mountain back and forth, panicking in search of water. However, when she thought the child would not survive, she put the child down at one place and went to pray at the top of the mountain because she could not bear the sight of her child dying. At that time she heard a voice from the unseen, ‘O Hagar! O Hagar! Go see your son for he lives.’
When she returned and looked, the boy was alive and a fountain of water was flowing there. Now, it is the same well [i.e., the Well of Zamzam] whose water reaches all around the world and people drink it with great regard, respect, and reverence.
This entire incident stemmed from the mutual jealousy and stubbornness between co-wives.
The Promised Messiah (as) said:
Allah’s name is Zaahir [the Manifest] and also Batin [the Hidden]. He alone is Manifest and no one else is manifest. He reveals Himself to the world through Prophets. The manifestation of God Almighty takes place through the existence of Prophets. God is hidden prior to the advent of Prophets. People come to forget God and the world declares by its state of being as if God does not exist. The Prophets come to awaken the people from their slumber of heedlessness and God manifests Himself through them. This is precisely why the Prophets are called the ones who point to God. They cease to exist when God manifests Himself.
Look, until man ceases to exist with respect to his carnal passions and ego, even revelations and visions are useless because these things are transient and are not long lasting, and have no value or worth unless one loses himself in God.
This also is precisely the secret of the acceptance of supplications. Until a person loses himself in God by abandoning his own desires, plans, and scholarliness, and unless he has total conviction and full confidence in God’s ability to do anything and in God being absolutely Omnipotent and in His ability to hear and accept—till such time, the supplication is something that has no value.
Why don’t philosophers believe in the acceptance of prayers? The reason is that they do not believe in the vast powers of God and in His ability to bring into being the finest of fine and subtlest of means. They consider God’s capabilities to be limited. They put their trust in their own knowledge and experience. Compared to their own experiences, even the thought that God exists does not come to them and that He can perhaps also do something. This is indeed the reason why, in serious illnesses, they sometimes declare definitively and categorically that the patient will not survive or will die in a certain period of time or in a certain manner. However, there are scores of examples that I have personally witnessed, and some cases I personally know that after their definitive and categorical declarations, God Almighty created provisions for those patients such that they ultimately survived. And sometimes it so happened that those patients whose death they had definitively and categorically decreed, became healthy and well, and met them on subsequent occasions and embarrassed them and their knowledge and predictions.
It is mentioned in a hadith: مَا مِنْ دَآءٍ إِلَّا وَلَہُ دَوَآءٌ2 [‘There is no disease for which there is no cure’].
I recall the statement of a famous physician who said that there is no disease that is incurable; it is the shortcoming of our knowledge and understanding that our knowledge has not yet fathomed it. It is quite possible that Allah the Exalted has created some provisions that can bring about a cure for someone whom we believe to be incurable, and he thereby may recover and become well again. Therefore, one should never make a definitive prediction. On the other hand, if one must give an opinion, he may say that this is what he suspects, but it is possible that Allah the Exalted may create a way out of this predicament and may cure the patient.
Supplication is a weapon that God has created whereby tasks that are considered impossible by man get accomplished, because there is nothing impossible for God.3
Haji Ilahi Bakhsh of Gujrat was in the presence of the Promised Messiah (as). He said that before his Bai’at [Pledge of Allegiance] into the Jama’at, he had a habit of using opium and hookah [smoking tobacco] for the previous fifteen years. Subsequent to the Bai’at, he became ashamed that he still had such bad habits, so he went out to a jungle and cried before God and prayed to Him. Then, he was able to give up both habits instantaneously without having any difficulty or suffering any ailment.
The Promised Messiah (as) said, ‘This is the grace of God Almighty.’
(Before Zuhr Prayer)
The Promised Messiah (as) said:
With regard to Heaven, Allah the Exalted has said, عَطَآءً غَیْرَ مَجْذُوْذٍ4 that it is such a blessing which will not be terminated. If this were not the case, believers would always be scared of being expelled from it. On the other hand, this has not been said about Hell.
In fact, it is clear on the basis of the Hadith that there will come a time when everyone will have exited Hell. This is also what the mercy of God Almighty demands. After all, man is the creation of God. God Almighty will remove his weaknesses and gradually, stage by stage, deliver him from the torment of Hell.5
1 Burden us not with what we have not the strength to bear (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:287). [Publisher]
2 Mishkat al-Masabih, Kitab at-Tib wa ar-Riqa, Hadith 4514 [Publisher]
3 Al-Hakam, vol. 12, no. 22, p. 3–4, dated 26 March 1908
4 Surah Hud, 11:109 [Publisher]
5 Badr, vol. 7, no. 13, p. 4, dated 2 April 1908