he only way to determine whether or not this person is from God ? I thought about that, and I thought about, well, what other way could it be ? Could a physical appearance be a way of determining whether or not a person is a proof of God ?
We find that Socrates (peace be upon him), who was one of the 124 prophets and messengers who were sent to humanity, one of the most brilliant minds to have ever lived, even till today universities and students study his thoughts and his teachings and materials.
This great philosopher was described in the narrations as being extremely ugly. They stated that he had a nose which resembled the nose of a boar or a pig. He had lips that were like the lips of a donkey. They said he was overweight.
He let his hair grow long, even though the enemies of his people had their hair long. And rather, his people—their ideals or understanding of what beauty was—were these muscular, well-built individuals that you see in the statues of ancient Rome and Greece, Athens. So to disregard Socrates and his brilliance on the basis of his appearance, I think would be a grave mistake, because he proved that he was the most knowledgeable of his people at that time.
And Socrates came to his people with the doctrine of the Republic, and that the ruler is the philosopher king, and he fulfilled the criteria of what it is to be a prophet or a messenger. Imam Ali, he came to the people and he was, according to many of the narrations, short and overweight ; he had a belly.
And he was balding ; he was not attractive. He was the opposite of the images that they have of him today that they sell in his name, making profit off of him in Karbala and Najaf and the Shia world. And yet his appearance has nothing to do with whether or not he's the truth or not the truth.
And in fact, one of the narrations of the Ahlul Bayt (peace be upon them) say that the proof of God is not known by his outward appearance. And so now we know that the outward appearance is not a way of determining whether or not he is truthful or not truthful.
Well, what if the person, I thought, was unhealthy ? What if he was diseased ? What if he was sickly ? What if he was struck with cancer, or struck with leprosy, or another illness ? Would this be a sign that God is not satisfied with this individual, or a sign that he's cursed, or a sign that he's not from God ?
And I found in the Old Testament the story of a prophet named Job, alayhi salam, whom was struck by God with a disease that caused him to have boils and caused there to be worms that infested his body, and caused him to give off a putrid smell, to the point that the people in the town took his carcass and threw him out with the trash. And they considered that God was angry with him.
And yet, this was not a way of determining whether or not Job was truthful, because Job was a prophet, and he remained a prophet, and God gave him back and restored his health. So, proofs of God can be struck with illnesses and diseases.
So their outward appearance is not a sign, and not a way to determine if they are a proof of God, or if they are truthful or not. Being struck with illnesses is also not a sign. One of their legs could not function, and that's not a way to tell.
One of their arms could not function, and it's not a way to tell. One of their eyes could not function. They could have sores ; they could have any disease. What about eloquence, I thought ? What if the prophet or the messenger was just not eloquent ?
He didn't have a strong vocabulary, wasn't a good orator or speaker. What if he couldn't talk properly ? What if he couldn't pronounce properly ? You know, a lot of people claim that Ahmad al-Hassan is not a messenger of God because he mispronounced certain words.
"You do not know the Quran. I've never even read it, except for a few books, some of them," "that are written by my teacher when he is practicing." "I've never read the Quran. I have nothing of the type of Quran that I use." "I've never read the Quran. I have never heard of any of the Quran that is written in Arabic," "as long as they are not in common with the Quran." So, it's just a question of saying : The Prophet was called the speaker to God, the one who spoke to God, Kaleemullah.
And Kaleemullah, the one who spoke to God, couldn't even speak. He couldn't even pronounce the Hebrew. He had to make a dua to God to make his matter easy and to untie the twisting of his tongue, in order that the people may understand his speech. He had to ask God for support in the form of Aaron, who was an additional prophet sent to him to be kind of like a spokesperson who spoke on his behalf.
So not being able to speak properly is not a reason why the person can be doubted or disregarded as a messenger from God. So what other ways would there be to even determine if the person was truthful or not truthful ? If God, in order to be just, has to make His path clear, and his looks, his speech, and his health are not signs on whether or not the person is truthful or not, then what is ?
I thought to myself, well, maybe somebody could say, well, his behavior, his morals and manners. That is the ultimate way of knowing if a person is from God or not. And it didn't take long before I remembered the story which is in the Surah which is associated with the Imam alayhi salam, Imam Mahdi and the Qa'im, and that's the Surah of Al-Kahf, the cave, which has in there its most important story, which is the story of Moses and the righteous servant.
Moses receives from God the Torah, and he thinks to himself that he is the most knowledgeable of all people. And he learned from God all of God's ways, all of God's laws, all of God's morals and manners, and what God likes and what He deems to be evil.
Moses thinks he knows good and evil, right and wrong, the halal and the haram. And so God orders Moses to go meet a messenger from Him at the junction of the two seas. Moses takes off. He goes to the junction of the two seas. He meets this messenger and he goes on a journey with him. And there are three stations that he stops at with the righteous servant.
The first incident : they pass by a group of people that are on a ship and they need a ride. So they ask these people, "Will you give us a ride ?" And the people are nice enough and they say, "Of course, come strangers, enter into our..." The...
The righteous servant is caught. Moses turns to the righteous servant and says, "What are you doing ? This is not good. This is immoral. God would not be satisfied with this. How do we repay good with evil ? Surely what you are doing is an immoral act." The righteous servant says to him, "Did God not appoint me ? Did He not say to you..." 'Follow the righteous servant,' and I claim to be that righteous servant when you found me at the junction of the two seas ?
Be silent as I demonstrate my knowledge. Then he goes to the second station. Moses and the righteous servant, they encounter a boy. Moses is looking upon the young lad and he's smiling, admiring him, seeing him playing. The righteous servant calls over to the boy. The boy comes close. The righteous servant...
Pats on his head and then he clenches his fist around the hair of the child and he slams his... The child falls back with his head bleeding. The righteous servant takes a knife and slaughters the young child. Moses now has just witnessed an act of murder. He is horrified, trembling in shock. God had told Moses, "Thou shall not kill." And the righteous servant had just broken one of the commandments of God.
If that is not evil, then what is ? Moses freaks out, says to the righteous servant, "What have you done ? You've killed an innocent soul. This child has no sin upon him. How could you do this ? Surely what you are doing is a great evil deed." The righteous servant tells Moses, "Moses, did I not tell you that you would not be able to handle this ?
Be silent as I demonstrate my knowledge. And they continued to the third station. In the third station, what had happened ? They came across a village of people. In the village, nobody would offer them food, nobody would offer them drink, nobody would host them. They spit on them. They didn't recognize them. The righteous servant is walking with Moses.
What happens ? They find a wall and the wall is destroyed. So the righteous servant runs over towards the wall, raises his sleeves and begins to fix the wall. Moses doesn't understand. He thinks to himself, "The nice people in the ship, you made the ship sink.
The boy without sin, you slaughtered him. And now these people who threw trash at us and spat on us and didn't host us, now you're serving them and fixing their wall ? This doesn't make sense to me. And he objects for a third time, to where the righteous servant responds to him and says, Well, now is the end of the path for you and I.
You've objected three times ; it's over, and now I'm going to explain to you the reasons behind my actions. As for the people that were in the ship, there was a king of the area, a king of the lands that was coming by, and he was seizing all of the ships.
So I wanted to put a fault in their ship in order that the king not seize, or not want to seize, their ship. As for the child that I killed, I killed him because he was a disbeliever. A'udhu billah min ash-shaytan ar-rajim.
I did what I did in order that God may save them the trouble and replace them with a righteous seed. As for the wall that belonged there, was a treasure underneath the wall that belonged to a couple orphans who lived in the city.
Their parents were righteous, and I left them a treasure underneath the wall, and I fixed the wall because I didn't want those evil people in the city to take their treasure. And all of what I did, he says, all of it, I didn't do for my own self.
And so now we find a couple different things. One is that it is impossible to identify the proof of God based on the morals and manners. It's impossible to identify the proof of God even by the halal and the haram, or whether or not he commits a sin or commits a righteous act.
Because the whole point of that story, God was telling us that you cannot identify the messenger of God through your own wisdom, or through your own understanding of religion, For your own understanding of what is good and what is evil, or what is right and what is wrong, or what is halal and what is haram.
Because every person who has knowledge has above him somebody who has greater insight and understanding of knowledge.
