Welcome to our weekly program "Path towards Enlightenment" in which we present you a fluent and easy-to-understand explanation of the ayahs of the holy Qur’an. We start from where we left you last Friday and here is ayah 46 of Surah Saba:

 “Say, ‘I give you just a single advice: that you rise up for Allah’s sake, in twos, or individually, and then reflect: there is no madness in your companion: he is just a warner to you before [the befalling of] a severe punishment.”

In this ayah and the following ayahs of Surah Saba, God Almighty commands Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny) to invite people to Islam. As the first point in this ayah, he says: O Prophet! Tell people that my invitation is to reform you and your community. If you want to be free of corruption and sins that will result in severe punishment for you, you need to reform yourselves. In this and the next ayahs, Allah commands the Prophet to invite them to the Truth by means of different proofs, and dissuade them from aberration and idol-worship. Those who believe are commanded to make collective efforts for reformation of the society for the sake of God. The ayah also reprimands the pagans by saying that the Prophet is not mad, as they allege, but has the divine mandate to reform the society. Then it says that the Prophet is a warner, and if the pagans do not accept monotheism and abstain from sins, the divine punishment, which is severe, will indeed befall them.

From this ayah we learn that:

1. Society cannot be reformed through idle talk without practical steps, and therefore those believing in God should join each other and make collective efforts to rid the society from corruption and sins.
2. The quantity and number of people do not matter, and what is important is the sincere intention and resolve in mobilizing efforts in the path of God.
3. It is the habit of the disbelievers and the unjust to accuse reformers of being insane.

Now we listen to and read ayah 47 of Surah Saba:

“Say (O Prophet), ‘Whatever reward I may have asked you is for your own good. My [true] reward lies only with Allah, and He is witness to all things.”

This ayah means to say that the mission of the Prophet is solely for the sake of God and for the benefit of the people themselves, without expectations of any reward from them. As the ayah says towards its end, the reward of the Prophet is only with God since He is witness over all things, and not with the people. The Prophets are the real teachers of society and their mission is to guide people towards prosperity in life and salvation in afterlife.

From this ayah we learn that:

1. Religious preachers should not expect material compensation from the people, since their duty is to guide the people in the right direction solely for the sake of God.
2. No truly religious person thinks that God is indebted to him, since such a thought is blasphemy, and whatever the preachers and religious persons do is merely fulfilling of their duties.
3. It is God Who rewards His messengers, the Imams, and the saintly persons who guide people in the interest of the people themselves.

AS/ME