Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan, he said in one of his speeches, uh, to the people that they should research and pay close attention and scrutinize their religion and their path, and that they should never allow anybody else to determine, to determine their hereafter for them. Every single person should use their own brain and come to the conclusion on whether or not what they're following is the truth or falsehood. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan wants us to do. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan asked us to
Published on18 September 2026
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Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan, he said in one of his speeches, uh, to the people that they should research and pay close attention and scrutinize their religion and their path, and that they should never allow anybody else to determine, to determine their hereafter for them. Every single person should use their own brain and come to the conclusion on whether or not what they're following is the truth or falsehood. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan wants us to do. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan asked us to
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2,388 words
Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan, he said in one of his speeches, uh, to the people that they should research and pay close attention and scrutinize their religion and their path, and that they should never allow anybody else to determine, to determine their hereafter for them. Every single person should use their own brain and come to the conclusion on whether or not what they're following is the truth or falsehood. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan wants us to do. This is what the Imam Al-Hassan asked us to do from the very beginning.
And so when I scrutinized and thought about and contemplated and researched on whether or not the law of knowing the proof was sufficient and the only way to determine whether or not a messenger is truly from God or not from God, which is that the messenger comes to us and he has a letter of appointment from God.
He claims the will, he claims the prophecy of having been foretold on the tongue of a previous prophet or messenger, in addition to demonstrating divine knowledge, in addition to calling towards the supremacy of God or the system that nobody else can appoint a king or a ruler except for God. If these three things are in an individual, is it sufficient…
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and the only way to determine whether or not this person's 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 ? Um, we find that Socrates, peace be upon him, which was one of the... W- who was one of the one hundred and twenty-four thousand 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, as being extremely ugly. They stated that he had a nose which resembled the nose of a, of a boar or a pig. He had lips that were like the lips of a, of a donkey.
They said he was overweight. He let his hair grow long, even though, uh, the enemies of the, of, of his people had their hair long. And rather his people, uh, their, their ideals or understanding of what beauty was, was these muscular, well-built, short-haired, um, individuals that you see in the, in the statues of ancient Rome and Greece, Athens.
So to disregard Socrates on the basis and his brilliance on the basis of his appearance, I think would be a grave mistake. 'Cause 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, what it is to be a prophet or a messenger. Imam Ali Al-Islam, he came to the people, uh, 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, 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 The Ahl al-Bayt, alayhim salam, 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, what if the person I thought was unhealthy ? What if he, he was diseased ?
What if he was sickly ? What if he was struck with cancer or struck with, with, with leprosy or another illness ? Would this be a sign that God is not satisfied with this individual or the 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, Ayoub, alayhi salam, whom was struck by God with a disease that caused him to have boils and caused that there 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 him to be-- considered that God was angry with him. And yet this was not a way of determining or whether or not-- on whether or not, uh, Job was, 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 they are truthful or not.
Uh, being struck with illnesses, um, 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, 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 and 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 pronunciate properly ? You know, a lot of the people they, they claim that Ahmad al-Hassan, alayhim salam, is not a messenger of God because he, uh, mispronunciated, uh, certain words or messed up a little bit in his speech or didn't use proper, uh, grammar.
Would that be sufficient enough to disregard his claim as a proof of God ? And what I found was that in the Torah, and also in the Quran, you have one of the greatest prophets ever, which was Moses, who was called the speaker to God, the one who spoke to God, Kalimullah. And Kalimullah, the one who spoke to God, couldn't even speak. He couldn't even pronunciate right. He had to make a dua to God to make his manner 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, 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 and 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's from God or not. And it didn't take long before I re- Remember the story which is in the surah which is associated with the Imam Alaihi Salaam, Imam Mahdi and the Qa'im, and that's the Surah 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's three stations that he stops with, 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 boat. Share with us in our food, share with us in our drink." And they take him on a ride on the boat for free, free of charge.
All of a sudden, after they eat, after they drink, Moses turns and he finds the righteous servant is beginning to, without them taking notice, to dig a hole in the bottom of the ship. His intention is clearly to, to sink the ship.
Moses, stunned, embarrassed, worried that they're going to be caught, turns to the righteous servant and says, "What are you doing ? This is, this is not good. This is immoral. God would not be satisfied with this. How do we repay good with evil ? Surely what you're doing is a, is a, 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 head into a wall.
The child falls back with his head bleeding. The righteous servant takes a knife and slaughters the, the, the young child. Moses, now just a witness, has just witnessed an act of murder. He's 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." 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 stance. And the third stance, 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, 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, uh, his sleeves, and begins to fix the wall. Moses doesn't understand. He thinks to himself, "The nice people in the ship, you made their 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, and, and, 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. He would grow up, although he had no sin on him now, he would grow up to be evil and give his parents a hard time, and for that reason, 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, it belonged... There was a treasure underneath the wall that belonged to a couple orphans who lived in the city. Their parents were righteous and had 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 or your own understanding of what is good and what is evil or what is right and what is wrong or what is halal or what is haram. Because every person who has knowledge has above him somebody who has more greater insight and understanding of knowledge.
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