The Greatest Jihad:Combat with the Self

(part 12)

The responsibilities of the learned are very heavy; the 'ulamd have more duties than other people. If you review the chapters related to the responsibilities of the 'ulamd in Usul al-Kdi and Wasa'il, you will see how they describe the heavy responsibilities and serious obligation of the learned. It is narrated that when the soul reaches the throat, there is no longer any chance for repentance and in that state one's repentance will not be accepted, although God accepts the repentance of the ignorant until the last minute of their lives.3 In another narration it is reported that seventy sins will be forgiven of one who is ignorant before one sin is forgiven of an 'dlim.4 This is because the sin of an

'dlim is very harmful to Islam and to Islamic society. If a vulgar and ignorant person commits a sin, he only wins misfortunes for himself. However, if an 'dlim becomes deviant, if he becomes involved in ugly deeds, he perverts an entire world ('dlam). He has injured Islam and the 'ulamd of Islam.5

There is also a narration according to which the people of hell suffer rom the stench of an 'dlim whose deeds do not accord with his knowledge.6 For this very reason, in this world there is a great difference between an 'dlim and an ignorant person with regard to beneit and injury to Islam and to the Islamic community. If an 'dlim is deviant, it is possible that the community will become infected by deviation. And if an 'dlim is refined, and he observes the morality and manners of Islam, he will reine and guide the community. In some of the towns to which I went during the summer, I saw that the people of a town were well mannered with religious morals. The point is this, that they had an 'dlim who was righteous and pious. If an 'dlim who is pious and righteous lives in a community, town or state, his very existence will raise the reinement and guidance of the people of that realm, even if he does not verbally propagate and guide. We have seen people whose existence causes lessons to be learned, merely seeing them and looking at them raises one's awareness.

At present in Tehran, about which I have some information, the neighborhoods differ from one another. Neighborhoods in which a pure and refined 'dlim lives have righteous people with strong faith. In another neighborhood where a corrupt deviant person wears the turban, and has become the prayer leader, and set up shop, you will see that the people there have been misled, and have been polluted and perverted. This is the same pollution from the stench which the evil

'dlim, the 'dlim without action, the perverted 'dlim has brought in this world, and the smell of it causes the people of hell to suffer. It is not because something is added to him there, that which occurs to this

'dlim in the next world is something which has been prepared in this world. Nothing is given to us except that which we have done. If an 'dlim is corrupt and evil, he corrupts the society, although in this world we are not able to smell the stench of it. However, in the next world stench of it will be perceived. But a vulgar person is not able to bring such corruption and pollution into the Islamic society. A vulgar person would never allow himself to proclaim that he was an Imam or the Mahdl, to proclaim himself a prophet, or to have received revelation. It

is a corrupt 'dlim who corrupt the worlds: "if an 'dlim is corrupt, a

world ('dlam) is corrupted."

Source:”‌‌ The Greatest Jihad”‌‌ by imam khomeini