SERMON 166
Advice for observing courtesy and kindness
and keeping in and out of the same
The young
among you should follow the elders while the elders should be kind to the
young. Do not be like those rude people of the pre-lslamic (al-jahiliyyah)
period who did not exert themselves in religion nor use their intellects
in the matter of Allah.
They
(1)
are like the breaking of eggs
in the nest of a dangerous bird, because their breaking looks bad, but
keeping them intact would mean the production of dangerous young ones.
A part of the same sermon
About the autocracy and oppression of the Umayyads and their fate
They will
divide after their unity and scatter away from their centre. Some of them
will stick to the branches, and bending down as the branches bend, until
Allah, the Sublime, will collect them together for the day that will be
worst for the Umayyads just as the scattered bits of clouds collect
together in the autumn. Allah will create affection among them.
Then He will make them into
a strong mass like the mass of clouds. Then he will open doors for them to
flow out from their starting place like the flood of the two gardens (of
Saba') from which neither high rocks remained safe nor small hillocks, and
its flow could be repulsed neither by strong mountains nor by high lands.
Allah will scatter them in
the low lands of valleys and then He will make them flow like streams
throughout the earth, and through them He will arrange the taking of
rights of one people by another people and make one people to stay in the
houses of another people.
By Allah, all their position
and esteem will dissolve as fat dissolves on the fire.
The cause of tyranny
O' people!
If you had not evaded support of the truth and had not felt weakness from
crushing wrong then he who was not your match would not have aimed at you
and he who overpowered you would not have overpowered you. But you roamed
about the deserts (of disobedience) like Banu Isra'il (Children of
Israel).
I swear by my life that
after me your tribulations will increase several times, because you will
have abandoned the truth behind your backs, severed your connection with
your near ones and established relations with remote ones.
Know that if you had
followed him who was calling you (to guidance) he would have made you
tread the ways of the Prophet, then you would have been spared the
difficulties of misguidance, and you would have thrown away the crushing
burden from your necks.
(1). The implication is
that the outer Islam of these people required that they should not be
molested, but the consequence of sparing them in this way was that they
would create mischief and rebellion.
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