Taking Account of Our Innate Nature

🔘Weekly Session on the Exegesis of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 20)
📆 Date: 1403/04/14 — 27 Dhu al-Hijja 1445
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei

🗒 Some of the topics discussed in the session:
📌 Please note that the hadith cited in the text are paraphrased. To study them in full, be sure to consult the lecture.

🌼 The growth of intention: bringing intention to maturity
🌼 Cultivating and refining intention
🌼 Right guidance: steadfastness on the path of truth
🌼 Traversing the land of servitude to God with speed, and reaching what lies with the Lord
🌼 Examining the fitra: turning away from it is like drawing one’s sword against the Imam
🌼 Turning away from the fitra leads to inversion: instead of following the path of tawhid, we follow the path of shirk. Noble qualities give way to vile ones, and we see light as darkness.
🌼 One sign that the fitra has been locked is resistance to knowledge and wisdom.
🌼 We should question ourselves, even a little, about what we have been given, since it may have come from the ego or Satan.
🌼 To deny the light is to remain trapped in darkness.
🌼 Making a home for vile traits extinguishes the possibility of noble qualities emerging; ignorance then takes the reins.
🌼 The spiritual faculties
🌼 (Hadith) God’s family
God’s creatures are like His family, and the most beloved person to God among them is the one who benefits His family and brings joy to its members.
🌼 Who are the most beloved people?
Those who bring the greatest benefit to others.
🌼 Benefit is not merely material; we must also sincerely seek people’s spiritual good. One form of benefit is making wise choices.
🌼 Every choice we make affects the whole world.
🌼 A good choice adds beauty to the world; a bad one does the opposite.
🌼 We are always at Saqifa or Ghadir; not for a moment do we stand apart from them.
🌼 Our will must be aligned with the will of God. The Imams are vessels of God’s will, and they must be our role models.
🌼 Our choices have both outward and inward effects. A good choice increases the pace of our journey in servitude to God.
🌼 Let us be careful not to let Satan be our mount—and, worse still, not to become Satan’s mount! We must not strive to increase wickedness.
🌼 Who we are today is the image of who we will be tomorrow.
🌼 The Imam of Our Time is chosen and elect; he is not someone we choose, but one who has already been chosen. We must pledge allegiance to him, not choose him. He is God’s proof, and the Imam marks the end of the path of Saqifa.
🌼 The best way to serve people is through the practices of prayer and fasting. This service is blessed, healing and beneficial; service apart from them will be without blessing.
🌼 Let us not be taken in by the good manners of hypocrites: a sweet fruit does not grow from a foul vessel!
🌼 (Hadith) God, Blessed and Exalted is He, lends His enemies the character and manners of His friends.
Why has He done this? So that God’s friends may live more easily under the rule of His enemies. Otherwise, the believers would be killed. In a sense, God has restrained them through good manners.
🌼 (Hadith) No one is considered a believer unless they obey all our commands. (Imam al-Sadiq) They must accept all our commands and act upon them.
Among these commands is waraʿ (refraining from sin). The Imam says: “Overcome our enemies through waraʿ, for God will raise you in rank through it.”
🌼 A believer follows every good deed.
🌼 (Hadith) Is it enough to claim that we are Shiʿa simply by expressing love for the Ahl al-Bayt? The Imam says: “By God, none is our Shiʿa except one who is God-fearing and obedient to Him. This can only be so through humility, reverence, trustworthiness, abundant remembrance of God, prayer, fasting, kindness to parents and neighbours, caring for the poor, helping those in debt, looking after orphans, not harming people with one’s tongue, speaking to people only with goodness, and so on.”
🌼 A verbal declaration of allegiance to the Imams is not enough; it must be accompanied by action.
🌼 (Hadith) There is no kinship between God and anyone. The one nearest and most honourable in His sight is the most God-fearing and the most devoted in obedience to Him.
🌼 Nearness to God is attained through obedience to Him.
🌼 The Imam says: “Whoever obeys God is one of us, and whoever disobeys God is our enemy.”
🌼 Elsewhere it is said: “No one will attain our wilayah except through action and waraʿ.”
🌼 If we care for God’s creation, it must be for the sake of God’s pleasure.
🌼 Let us serve God’s creation, but be ready to give our lives for the believers.
🌼 Meeting a believer’s needs: the Imam refers to Hajj ten times and says that meeting a believer’s needs is superior to it. Why is this so? Because the believer is the banner of the Sharia.
🌼 (Hadith) There is a particular act of goodness through which, if My servants draw near to Me, I will make them heirs to Paradise. (The Imam is asked what this act of goodness is, and replies:)

One who strives to meet a fellow believer’s needs.
🌼 (Hadith) Imam Sajjad says: “Whoever meets a believer’s needs is as though they had met God’s needs.”
🌼 Several hadiths on meeting the needs of believers and helping them through their difficulties
🌼 The virtue of meeting the needs of believers
📽To watch the full lecture, please visit the link below.