It is necessary for you to refine yourselves, so that when you become the chief of a community or a clan, you will be able to refine them as well. In order to be able to take steps toward the reform and development of a community, your aim should be service to Islam and Muslims. If you take steps for the sake of God, God the Almighty is the turner of the heart He will turn hearts in favor of you:
Surely for those who believe and do good deeds, the Merciful (al-Rahman) will bring, about love. (19:96)
Take some trouble on the way to God, devote yourselves; God will not leave you unpaid; He will reward you, if not in this world, then in the next. If aside from Him, you have no reward in this world, what could be better? This world is nothing. This pomp and these personalities will come to an end after a few days, like a dream that passes before the eyes of man, but the otherworldly reward is infinite and never ending.
It is possible that by spreading poison and evil propaganda impure hands have portrayed ethical and reformatory programs as without importance and have presented going to the minbar (pulpit, pronounced as 'mimbar') for giving advice and making sermons as contrary to a scholarly station, and they inhibit the work of the great scholarly personalities who have the station of reforming and refining the seminaries by calling them 'mimbar' and (mere sermonizers). Today, in some seminaries, going to the mimbar and giving sermons may even be considered disgraceful! They forget that the Commander of the Faithful, Peace be with him', was mimbari (a sermonizer) and from the minbar he would admonish people, make them aware of things, raise their consciousnesses, and guide them. Other Imams, Peace be with them', were also this way.
Perhaps secret agents have injected this evil in order to exterminate spirituality and ethics from the seminaries, so that as a result our seminaries should become corrupt and dissolute; that, God forbid, forming gangs, selfishness, hypocrisy, and disputes should penetrate the seminaries; that the members of the seminaries fight with each other, close ranks against one another, and that they insult and belie one another; that they become discredited in the Islamic community, so that the foreigners and enemies of Islam are able to get hold of the seminaries and destroy them. The ill intentioned know that the people support the seminaries, and as long as the people support them it is not possible to crush them or tear them apart. But on the day when the members of the seminaries and the students of the seminaries come to lack ethical principles and Islamic manners, and fight each other, and form rival gangs, and are not refined and purified, dirty their hands with unsuitable deeds, then naturally the nation of Islam will get a bad impression of the seminaries and the clergy, and support for them will be lost, and consequently the way will be opened for the use of force and enemy's influence. If you see that governments are afraid of a cleric and of a marja' (authority in Shi'ite jurisprudence and source of emulation), and take account of them, it is because of this, that-they benefit from the support of the people; in truth, they are afraid of the people. They consider it probable that the people will rebel and rise up against them if they show contempt and audacity and violate a cleric. However, if the clerics oppose one another and defame one another and do not behave with Islamic manners and morals, they will fall from their position in the community, and the people will abandon them.
The people expect you to be ruhani (spiritual, a cleric), well mannered with the manners of Islam, and to be of the party of ALLAH (SWT). Restrain yourselves from the glamour and glitter of life and artificiality, and do not refuse any kind of self-sacrifice in the way of the advancement of Islamic ideals and service to the nation of Islam. Step forward on the way of God the Almighty to please Him, and except for the unique Creator pay attention to no one. However, if, contrary to what is expected, it is seen that instead of paying attention to the transcendental, all you care about is this world, and just like the others you try to gain worldly and personal interests, and you fight with one another for the sake of the world and its base pleasures, and you take Islam and the Qur'an, may ALLAH (SWT) forbid it, as playthings, simply to reach sinister goals and your own dirty, disgraceful and worldly intentions, and you turn your religion into a marketplace, then the people will be turned away and become cynical. So, you will be responsible. If some of those who wear the turban and burden the seminaries fight and brawl with each other and malign and slander one another because of personal grudges and the pursuit of worldly interests, and rivalry over some positions, they commit treason against Islam and the Qur'an and violate the divine trust. God the Almighty has placed the holy religion of Islam in our hands as a trust. The Noble Qur'an is a great divine trust. The 'ulama and ruhaniyun (clergy) the bearers of the divine trust, and they bear the responsibility to protect that trust from betrayal. This stubbornness and personal and worldly antagonism are treachery against Islam and the great Prophet of Islam.
I do not know what purpose these oppositions; formations of cliques, and rivalries serve. If it is for the sake of the world, you do not have much of that! Supposing that you did benefit from pleasures and worldly interests, there would be no place for disagreements, unless you were not ruhani, and the only thing you inherited of ruhaniyat (spirituality, being a cleric) was the robe and the turban. A ruhani (cleric) who is occupied with metaphysics, a ruhani who benefits from living teachings and formative Islamic attributes, a ruhani who considers himself a follower of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be with him', is not possibly tempted by the world, nor would he allow it to cause disagreements. You who have declared yourselves to be followers of the Commander of the Faithful, Peace be with him', you should at least make a bit of research into the life of that great man, and see if you are really one of his followers! Do you know and practice anything of his zuhd (asceticism), taqwa (piety, God-wariness) and simple, unadorned life? Do you know anything of that great man's combat against oppression and injustice, and class differences, and of his unhesitating defense and support of the oppressed and persecuted, of how he lent a hand to the dispossessed and suffering social classes? Have you put it into practice? Is the meaning "Shi'ite" nothing more than the ornamental appearances of Islam? Therefore, what is the difference between you and other Muslims who are much ahead and more observant in these matters than the Shi'ah? What distinguishes you over them?
Those who today have set a part of the world on fire, who spill blood and who kill, do this because they are competing with each other in looting the nations of the world and swallowing their wealth and the products of their labor, and in bringing the weak and under-developed countries under their domination and control. Thus, in the name of freedom, development and prosperity, the defense of independence and protection of borders, and under other deceptive slogans, every day the flames of war are set in some corner of the world, and millions of tons of incendiary bombs are dropped upon defenseless nations. This fighting seems correct and accords with the logic of worldly people whose brains are polluted. However, your conflicts, even according to their logic, are incorrect. If asked why they are fighting, they will say that they want to take over such and such a country; the wealth and income of such and such a country must be made ours. However, if you are asked why you have conflicts and why you are fighting, what will you answer? What benefit do you get from the world, for the sake of which you are fighting? Your monthly income, which the maraji' taqlid (supreme authorities of religious jurisprudence) give to you, called "shahriyah," is less than the money spent by others for cigarettes! I saw in a newspaper or magazine - I don't recall exactly - that the amount the Vatican sends to a single priest in Washington makes quite a large figure. I reckon it is more than the entire budget of all the Shi'ite seminaries! Is it right for you, with your lifestyle and conditions, to have conflicts and confrontations with one another?
The root of all these conflicts, which have no specific sacred aim, is love of this world. If conflicts of this sort exist among you, it is for the reason that you have not expelled the love of this world from your hearts. Because worldly interests are limited, each one rises up against his rival in order to obtain them. You desire a certain position, which someone else also wants, and naturally this leads to jealousy and strife. However, the people of God - who have expelled the love of the world from their hearts and have no aim but God - never fight with one another and never cause such calamities and corruption. If all of the divine prophets were to gather in a city today, there would be no disagreement or conflict among them, for their aims and goals are one. The hearts of all of them, attend to God the Almighty, and they are clear of any love of the world.
If your deeds and actions, your way of life and your wayfaring, are of the sort evident today, then you had better fear-may God protect us from it, that you may leave this world without being one of the Shi'ah of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Peace be upon him'. You should fear that your repentance might not be accepted, and that you might not receive the intercession of Imam 'Ali (A.S.). Before losing the opportunity, you should try to remedy this. Give up these banal and shameful conflicts. These confrontations and conflicts are wrong. Do you compose two nations? Does your religion constitute different sects? Why will you not beware? Why are you not pure and honest and brotherly with one another? Why? Why?
These conflicts are dangerous, for they lead to irreparable harms, the destruction of the seminaries, and they will bring you discredit and dishonor in the community. This banding into gangs is only to your loss. Not only does it bring you harm and. discredit, but it brings dishonor and harm to the community and the nation, and leads to the harm of Islam. If your confrontations lead to harm it will be an unforgivable offence, and before God the Almighty it will be one of the greatest of all sins, because it will corrupt the community and make it prone to the influence and domination of the enemy.
Perhaps some hidden hands are at work spreading enmity and discord in the seminaries, sowing by various means the seeds of discord and strife, poisoning the thoughts and confusing the minds under the guise of religious duties' by means of such religious duties' corruption is established in the seminaries, so that those who are useful for the future of Islam are destroyed and disabled from serving Islam and the Islamic community in the future.
It is necessary to be conscious and aware. Do not fool yourselves into thinking that your religious duties require such things, and that your religious obligations are such and so. Sometimes Satan determines responsibilities and duties for man. Sometimes selfish wants and desires force a man to do things in the name of religious duties. Offending a Muslim and saying something bad about a brother in faith are not religious duties. This is love of the world and love of self. These are the promptings of Satan, which bring such wretchedness for man. This enmity is the enmity of the damned:
"That most surely is the truth, the contending of one with another of the inmates of the fire" (38:64).
Enmity and contention exist in hell. The people of hell have conflicts, fighting and clawing at one another. If you have quarrels for the sake of the world, beware that you are preparing hell for yourself, and you are on the way there. There is no fighting for things of the other world. The people of the other world are pure and at Peace with one another. Their hearts are overflowing with the love of God and servitude to Him. The love of God requires the love of those who have faith in God. The love for the servants of God is the shadow of that very love for God.
Do not set your own hands on fire. Do not set ablaze the flames of hell. Hell is lit with the ugly works and deeds of man. These are the deeds of refractory man, which set this fire. It is narrated: "I passed hell when it was extinguished." If a man does not light the fire by his works and deeds, hell will remain extinguished. The interior of this nature is hell. To approach this nature is to approach hell. When man passes away from this world and the; curtains are drawn aside, he will realize.
"This is for what your own hands have sent before," (3:182),
And
"and what they had done they shall find present," (18:49).
All of the deeds, which are done by man in this world, will be seen in the other world, and will be embodied for him,
"So he who has done an atom's weight of good shall see it and he who has done an atoms weight of evil shall see it"(99:7-8).
All of the works and deeds and words of man will be reflected in the other world. It is as if everything in our lives were being filmed, and in that world the film will be shown, and one will be able to deny none of it. All of our actions and movements will be shown to us, in addition to the testimony given by our limbs and organs:
"They shall say: ALLAH, Who makes everything speak, has made us speak" (41:21).
You will not be able to deny your ugly deeds or hide them before God, Who Will make all things able to speak and bear witness. Think a little, look ahead, and weigh the consequences of your deeds. Keep in mind the perilous events, which take place after death, the pressure of the grave, the world of barzakh (the period between death and resurrection), and do not neglect the hardships, which will follow that. At least believe in hell. If a man believes in the perilous events, which take place after death, he will change his way of life. If you had faith and certainty in these things, you would not live so freely and licentiously. You will try to guard your pen, your steps, and your tongue, in order to reform and purify yourselves.
Because He favors His servants, God the Blessed and Supreme gave them Intellect. He gave them the power to refine and purify themselves. He sent the prophets and awliya' to guide people and to help them to reform themselves so that they do not fall into the severe chastisement of hell. If these restraints do not bring about awareness and refinement in man, God the Merciful, will make him aware through other means: by various hardships, afflictions, poverty, illness. Like an expert physician or a skilled and kind nurse He tries to cure sick men from dangerous spiritual illnesses. If God blesses a servant, he will be faced with afflictions until he turns his attention to God the Almighty, and is refined. This is the way, and other than this there is no way. But man must tread this path with his own feet in order to attain success. If he does not succeed in this way, and the misled man is not cured, he does not deserve the blessings of heaven. There will be much pressure on him when his soul is drawn from him, so perchance he will return and be aware. Again, if he is not affected, then in the grave, in the world of barzakh, and in the terrible perilous events which take place after death he will suffer pressures and chastisement until he becomes purified and refined, and he will not go to hell. All of these are blessings from Almighty God to prevent man from going to hell. What then if with all these blessings and favors from Almighty God he is still not cured? Then there is no other alternative but the last cure, which is that he should be burned. How many a man has not refined and reformed himself and was not affected by these cures, so that he needed God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, to refine His servant by fire, just as gold must be purified in fire.
