Ignorance, the Mother of All Faults

🌼🔆🌼The Dreadful, Dark Sin of Shirk🌼🔆🌼

🔹 Commentary and Exegesis on the Twentieth Supplication of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya
📅 Date: 1404/02/11 – 01 Dhū al-Qaʿda 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
Some of the topics discussed:
🌿 The Twentieth Supplication of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ، وَ مَتِّعْنِي بِهُدًى صَالِحٍ لَا أَسْتَبْدِلُ بِهِ، وَ طَرِيقَةِ حَقٍّ لَا أَزِيغُ عَنْهَا، وَ نِيَّةِ رُشْدٍ لَا أَشُكُّ فِيهَا، وَ عَمِّرْنِي مَا كَانَ عُمْرِي بِذْلَةً فِي طَاعَتِكَ، فَإِذَا كَانَ عُمْرِي مَرْتَعاً لِلشَّيْطَانِ فَاقْبِضْنِي إِلَيْكَ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَسْبِقَ مَقْتُكَ إِلَيَّ، أَوْ يَسْتَحْكِمَ غَضَبُكَ عَلَيَّ.
اللَّهُمَّ لَا تَدَعْ خَصْلَةً تُعَابُ مِنِّي إِلَّا أَصْلَحْتَهَا، وَ لَا عَائِبَةً أُوَنَّبُ بِهَا إِلَّا حَسَّنْتَهَا، وَ لَا أُكْرُومَةً فِيَّ نَاقِصَةً إِلَّا أَتْمَمْتَهَا.

🧭 A path on which I never waver

O God, grant me the benefit of right guidance, which I will never forsake,
and a true path from which I will never stray,
and steadfast resolve in which I will never doubt.

O God, prolong my life for as long as it is spent in obedience to You**;
but if my life should become a pasture for Satan,
take my soul before Your wrath overtakes me or Your anger takes hold.

O God, **let no blameworthy trait remain in me without Your setting it right;
let no flaw for which I may be reproached remain,
without Your concealing its ugliness.
Let no quality of honor or nobility remain in me without Your perfecting it.

Make me aware of my faults, so that I may know my own shortcomings and then strive to remedy the faults of the whole world.
O God, do not leave me to myself, even for an instant.
O God, do not leave my faults unattended; remove them.

Indeed, recognizing one’s own faults and shortcomings is a special kind of wisdom.
Being unaware of one’s faults and failings is not perfection;
the height of ignorance is for a person not to know their own faults.
Knowing one’s own faults is half of wisdom.

Why?
Because if a person recognizes the illness, they will know the cure.
If they do not recognize the illness, there can be no cure.

How can a person attend to themselves if they cannot see their own faults, or mistake them for virtues?
How can they heal themselves and remedy their shortcomings and faults?
We must examine our moral and behavioral faults**;
so that both our character and our conduct may improve,
as may our inner and outer lives.

Our faults arise either from **a lack of virtues,
or from an excess of vices.
Vices are inherent in the self.
Every ugly thing that takes root in a person’s soul
leads them toward corruption.

📉 Taking pride in faults: a descent into the lowest depths

Why, in this age, is an abundance of faults considered an asset?
People take pride in their faults and shortcomings.
Are these not signs of ignorance?
Why do they regard them as a mark of distinction?

Why, in this age—in the End Times—do people compete to outdo one another in their faults?
A fault is a deficiency, even when it is abundant.
They regard an abundance of faults as wealth, counting it as an advantage.
They imagine that ugliness elevates them,

when all it elevates is harm, not virtue.
Virtues do not diminish a person’s standing;
rather, faults make a person deficient, strip them of their humanity, and cast them into the lowest depths.

Yet the closer this person comes to the depths,
the more they boast of themselves.

Indeed, faults, shortcomings, sin, wickedness, and corruption all diminish;
they diminish a person’s worth and rank.
They bring a person low.

It is the removal of shortcomings that raises a person higher,
elevates their human stature, and carries them to the summit.

We must attend to both our inner and outer faults**;
we must **look to the roots of our faults,
to the faults of our thought and reason, and to our hearts.
Let us beware of becoming breeding grounds for faults and cultivating them.

🪞 The Most Dangerous Fault Is Justifying One’s Faults

The worst of faults is the embellishment of a fault.
To justify a fault is to make it seem pure.
One purifies its outward appearance so that one can parade one’s fault before the public as a display of beauty.
Embellishing faults is dangerous.
To see ugliness as beauty brings immense harm.

It is among the gravest afflictions of these end times,
and most people are caught up in it.
They justify their faults and adorn them.
They sell people this distortion at the price of the Hereafter.
A person becomes a buyer of faults, paying with their own Hereafter.
They lose their Hereafter and purchase ugliness.

This takes hold of the world.
A distortion bound up with folly.
So that one does not fall into foolishness,
one must not be deceived by embellishment.

People are deceived without realizing it.
They do not realize…
Each person is one individual, one part of this whole, yet they do not realize it.
This part affects the whole of existence.
This tiny particle affects the whole world, and it does not know it.

🌍 By Reforming Ourselves, We Reform the World

They do not know that if they reform themselves, they reform the world.
They reform the whole of existence.
To reform the soul is to reform the whole world.

When a person changes, they transform the whole of existence.
And this effect is not unique to human beings; every creature has an effect on the cosmos.
But the human effect is far greater.
The human being is an extraordinary variable.

This human being has counterparts in every part of this world and in the world as a whole.
In the parts of existence, in its very foundations.
When a person’s being changes, their counterparts change too**;
for better or for worse,
**in either case, they affect the outward and inward aspects of existence.

🌪 Faults Pollute the World; We Must Wash Away the Grime

The human being is a part moving through the life of this world.
Their movement sets this world in motion and transforms it.
I had no idea I could affect the world so profoundly.

That is why I had been heedless of my own faults.
A fault is disgrace and loss.
It diminishes a person, distorts and dulls them, and makes them a source of ill fortune.

Even if a person has some measure of nobility and honour in their soul,
and remains unaware of it**،
*that is a grave deficiency*;
like **the loss of limbs and faculties.

If a person becomes blind, deaf, or unable to speak,
or loses one of their limbs,
what would they look like?

A fault is an embryo.
When a person perfects the noble and honourable aspect of their being, they add to the beauty of this world.
When they purge their soul of faults, they cleanse the grime of this world and rid it of infection.

When they attend to their nobility,
water and strengthen it**،
that means **a paradise is added to the gardens of this world.

Where does this fault come from?
It begins when ignorance enters the human soul.
The entry of ignorance marks the beginning of faults growing in the human soul.

Ignorance itself is the greatest fault.
And at the same time, it is a factory of faults.
It multiplies and intensifies them.
This ignorance…

🧠 When Reason Reigns, Ignorance Dies

The more intense ignorance becomes,
the more deeply rooted the fault.
The depth of a fault corresponds to the depth of ignorance.

Ignorance is the blood and spirit of a fault.
These faults mingle with other faults, mate, grow, and multiply.
They grow plump and strong, and become brazen.
They take possession of this world.
They become the cancer of this world.

What are we to do?
Reason is the answer.
When reason takes the lead, ignorance is destroyed.
There is no room left for faults to grow.

Without reason, everything is ugly.
Every beauty without reason is ugliness.
Without reason, light cannot shine.
How could light be darkness?

Yes, reason is what makes light shine.
I had no idea—that is reason’s work.
I see the light, I feel it…
That is reason’s work; by God, it is reason’s work.

If reason were absent,
there would be no brightness,
even if light encompassed the whole world.
Without reason, there would be no illumination anywhere in this world.

If reason is absent,
even if a person is enveloped in knowledge,
that knowledge will produce ignorance.

Without reason, light cannot reveal its radiance.
That is reason’s work.

Now, let us leave aside the outward sciences,
let us pass beyond the outwardlights,
and look upon the inward lights…
That is the task.

If the inward light of human nature is left without reason…
a person is buried in the dungeon of their own ignorance, and loses all honour.

🧠 Until reason takes the lead, this world cannot be set right

Until reason rules this earthly sphere, this world cannot be set right.
By God, it cannot.
Reason’s rule must be firmly established upon this earthly sphere,
so that this material world may flourish.

Without reason, it is impossible for joy to enter the human soul.
People laugh from morning till night, yet they do not become joyful.
The joy they run after
can be attained through reason.

The rule of ignorance breeds turmoil and distress.
The rule of reason breeds beauty, light and security.

⏳ An age dominated by advanced ignorance

The present age is one dominated by advanced ignorance.
Ignorance has reached its fullness.
Ignorance means to expend its last reserves and parade them before the world.
The most ignorant people in all of history will reveal themselves in this age.

Ignorance has reached its end; its hour of death is near.
It means to finish what it has begun.

This human being, asleep as they are,
if they remain asleep even a little longer,
will be finished.

Until the breath of divine mercy arrives—which it will—
the breath of this ignorance will be cut off.

But the other one,
that singular being in all existence, who is the agent and cause of this world’s flourishing…
Whatever corruption there is comes from whoever is responsible for it;
that singular being, with a single breath, takes the very life out of every fault,
and expels corruption from the life of this world.

The ultimate healer is God:
the master, the Remnant of God, the Most Great, may my soul be his ransom—the master of the age and the time.

🌘 The blind beneath the light of the Imam

A person without sight, a person without light, is blind.
If they have eyes but there is no light, they are blind;
if there is light but no eyes, they are blind;
if they have eyes, and there is light too,
but their eyes are closed, they are still blind.

Are they not blind?
If they do not place themselves in the path of light, they remain blind.
With the Imam present, why be blind?
Why not benefit from the sunlight?
Why not benefit from their own Imam?
Why are they immersed in their own darkness and ignorance?

This course leads toward a dark death; associating partners with God is darkness.
What is ignorance’s darkest mission?
The most dangerous disease of ignorance is associating partners with God.

Every fault serves to lead a person into associating partners with God.
They are doorways through which a person is cast into the pit of shirk and doubt,
so that they may be buried all at once.⟦77⟁

**Ignorance may go beyond anything else, but it never goes beyond idolatry.
This is ignorance—the accursed Iblis’s master.
It turns up at every table:
at the table of sins,
at the table of worship,
even in the heart of prayer,
at the threshold of the night prayer.

The ostentation that crosses a person’s heart is the poisoned cry of ignorance.
From the depths of a person’s being, it cries out in idolatry.
Ignorance spreads its table over everything.

It leaves no community untouched,
especially religious communities:
Christianity, with its worship of a triune God;
Zoroastrians, with their dualism;
Jews, with their worship of Ezra;
Buddhists, with their worship of idols…
It lets no religion escape.
This ignorance is more dangerous than every hidden threat.

🕳 The danger of ignorance lies hidden in the depths of worship

With its lamp extinguished, ignorance makes itself known in the depths of a person’s worship.
It shows itself among the beads of the prayer beads.

Whoever turns their back on their Imam is turning toward ignorance**,
that is, **hastening to embrace idolatry.

To choose the Qur’an without the Ahl al-Bayt, or the Ahl al-Bayt without the Qur’an,
is to leap swiftly into the arms of ignorance.
And one makes this leap without even knowing it.

Let us be mindful of what we consume.
Our nourishment must come from pure knowledge, flowing from the spring of the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt,
not from other tables.

Every morsel you pick up mingles us with ignorance.
Let us be mindful of our bodily and spiritual nourishment.

📖 The believer’s intellect needs the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt

Our intellect needs the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt.
Let us never take it, even for a moment, away from the life-giving waters of the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt.
This eye must see through the all-seeing Eye of God;
the ear must hear through the Hearing of God;
the tongue must speak through the Speech of God.

✨ Ascending in the light of God’s knowledge; falling in the dark

Let it be illumined by God’s knowledge.
If so, a person rises and ascends.
If not, they suffer a technical failure.
No matter how high they have climbed, they will fall.

The higher an airplane flies,
the more certain its fall
if it suffers a technical failure at altitude.
Its fall leaves not a single fragment of what has fallen intact; it scatters everything to pieces.
What would become of an ocean if it fell from the heights?
And the sun?
Azazil became Iblis; he became what he should never have become.

🏥 Let us keep open the clinic that treats our flaws

Let us hold fast to the companion who is always by our side.
Let us never leave his clinic, even for a moment.
The clinic that remedies our flaws is the Qur’an.
Let us open it; let us open the Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya.

💎 Trading our flaws with God, the Buyer

Yes, the believer is shrewd.
The believer knows their Lord.
They know that their Lord buys flaws.
He buys them.

I trade my flaws with my God.
It is a trade from which no one else could profit,
a gain no wealth could secure.

People of faith know where to sell their flawed goods to reap abundant profit.
God does not merely pay their equivalent,
but multiplies their good deeds many times over.

He turns flaws into honor, then multiplies them.

🌟 Turning evil deeds into good deeds, and good deeds into ranks

This is our God:
the One who brings light out of the heart of darkness.
He cleaves the heart of darkness and brings radiance out of it.
If He were to cleave the heart of light, what would He take away?

He is the Creator of the great light**;
**He transforms sins into good deeds, and good deeds into degrees of nearness.
If this heart becomes a mine of love and beauty,
what will its God do with that heart?

He is the architect of beauty, the artist of beauty.
What wonders will He work?
He is the very God who says:
“He has endeared faith to you and made it beautiful in your hearts”

That is, He adorns our hearts with the love of Imam Ali, peace be upon him.
The God who creates beauty makes it ever more beautiful and adorned.
He immerses us in His beauty.

If we reach the depths of our own being**،
leave this world behind,
break through these darknesses,
and enter **the mine of light,

then we attain the visitation of Imam Ali**،
we come to *the word of divine unity*،
**and are immersed in divine unity.

Then we fall in love with faith,
and the love of faith wells up from our very being.
Our whole being becomes love.

Then we realize that our heart is an adornment of the One who adorns all existence.
What does He do?
Every wondrous vision on that mighty Tablet blossoms and dawns from within our hearts.

By God, at every moment, «کُلَّ یَومٍ هُوَ فِی شَأنٍ».

🚪 Passing through the seven gates of wickedness to reach the luminous heart

But we must pass through the seven gates of wickedness
to reach that luminous heart.

Unless we pass through the seven ill-omened quarters and trample them underfoot**،
we will never reach that **realm of love and adornment.

First: love of this world
Second: love of leadership
Third: love of food
Fourth: love of sleep
Fifth: love of comfort
Sixth: …
Seventh: love of women

💡 The secret of sincerity lies in choosing rightly

When we reach that heart,
when we attain that divine insight,
and visit it, what should we do?
We must follow his example; he is our guide.
We must melt into him, become one with his being.
The secret of sincerity lies in choosing rightly.

🔮 True following is the mingling of primordial light

If our master, Imam Ali, is our guide, then we must follow him with truthfulness and sincerity.
But the soundness of our following cannot be established unless our souls partake of the mingling of the light of our time and the primordial light.

When we reach the gathering of souls, in that realm of the unknown before this earthly world,
at the primordial division of souls, when those lights mingled, what share did we receive?

It begins with more than an outward sign.
If I say, “Ali is my guide,” and beat my breast, that does not prove the point.

Outward gestures alone do not establish a bond with God’s friends.
Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, says:
Just because I have attached my name to that blessed name, have I truly reached the point of following him?
Are outward gestures, outward affiliation, and mere display enough? They are not.

God says:
We shall call every person by the name of their Imam.
Whoever follows truly has genuinely followed their rightful Imam and attained the station of purification and purity.

At the time when God says:
When the Trumpet is blown,
no ties of kinship will remain between them, nor will they ask after one another.

And our master, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, peace be upon him, says:
The souls are assembled hosts.
Those among these hosts who recognized one another joined together.
And when those hosts and ranks disavowed one another, they turned away from each other and parted.

One who has no light of Ali within cannot love Ali, nor love those who love Ali.
The lovers of Ali are people of light.
It is not mere display or claim.

📚 Following and practice: the key to being refined by God

They asked Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya:
“Who taught you good manners?”
He replied, “My Lord. He taught me good manners within my own soul.

Whatever I admired in people of insight and discernment, I followed
and put into practice.

I both followed it and put it into practice.

And whatever I found reprehensible in the ignorant, I left behind,
with complete aversion and distaste.

This conduct of mine—this emulation, following, and practice—brought me into connection with God’s treasuries of knowledge.
For those of keen understanding, no path is more reliable or sound than emulation.

🕯 Divine light and guidance are attained through tawḥīdic emulation

The clearest path and the truest destination are reached only by following guidance—that is, the light of God.
When I followed the light of God, I arrived, was connected, became a lamp, gained knowledge, and became discerning.

“Those are the ones whom God has guided, so follow their guidance.”

Whose guidance does He tell him to follow?
His Muḥammad’s, his possessor of magnificent character’s.

And He also says:
“We revealed to you
that you should follow the faith of Abraham, the upright.”

Imam al-Ṣādiq, peace be upon him, continues:
“Had there been a path to the religion of God, Mighty and Majestic, more firmly grounded than emulation,
He would have called the prophets to it.”

Emulation does not mean merely fasting.
No, it means tawḥīdic emulation.

We must dissolve into the light of their oneness and guidance.

If there were such a path, it would be a firm one, and He would have called the prophets to it.

🌟 A light kindled only by following the truth

The Prophet of God, the Messenger of God, the Chosen Prophet, blessings of God be upon him and his family, says:

“There is a light in the hearts, and that light is kindled only by following the truth and setting one’s course upon the straight path.”
That light is a light from the prophets, which God has entrusted to the hearts of the believers.