Note: The Alislam Team assumes full responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies in this translation of the Friday Sermon.
Sermon delivered on 12 October 1923 (Published in Al-Fazl, 19 October 1923)
Topics: Collective responsibility, Tabligh, Adhan
After reciting the Tashahhud, Ta'awwudh, and Surah Al-Fatihah, Huzur Anwar spoke as follows.
All the works in this world that pertain to nations can only be accomplished by nations collectively. No single individual can fulfil them alone. A single person can bear only one person's burden — no man in this world can carry the burden of two. Someone might object in error and say: "Why can a man not carry two people's burden? We see that a strong man can lift the load of two." To this we say: there is no doubt that some people are stronger and some weaker, but the standard and criterion is not set according to exceptional strength or weakness — rather, the true standard is the general capacity of an ordinary human being. Whenever a decision is made, it is made according to this real standard, and any person assigned to a task is assigned work commensurate with that standard. When a strong man is assigned a task, he must work according to his own strength. Is there then any person who can do double the work his strength permits? There is no doubt that one person can lift ten seers (One seer=1/40 maund) and another an entire maund — but that does not mean the latter is carrying four people's burdens; he is still carrying the burden of one person, because that is the limit of his capacity. He cannot lift two maunds. So no person can be found who does the work of two.
In the same way, communal work cannot be done by any one person; such work too is done only by communities. I have drawn attention to this repeatedly: the community's assumption that a particular task is solely the Khalifa's responsibility is a grave error. The Khalifa is merely an administrator who maintains the community's organisation. However hard-working he may be, however much passion and longing he may carry within him, however ardently he may desire to accomplish all things — he can still only do one man's work. Unless the people around him gather together for every task and apply themselves to it wholeheartedly, that community can never succeed in its aims and objectives.
Just as it is impossible for one among you to do the work of two, it is equally wrong to place all hope upon the scholars and dedicated missionaries alone — expecting them to spread Islam and bring the world into the fold of Muslims. Even if every single member of our community were to arise for the work of tabligh, their number would still not be sufficient to carry the message to the entire world, let alone that the work be left dependent upon a handful of individuals.
It is true that the name of Ahmadiyyat has reached the farthest corners of the world — but in most places it has been conveyed through the agency of opponents who have presented Ahmadiyyat in a distorted form. And no person in the world can accept the truth unless it is presented to them in a form they are able to receive. A man sitting in a jungle cannot drink water, no matter how intense his thirst. Likewise, he cannot drink water into which poison has been mixed, because he desires to live, and drinking that water would mean his end.
Guidance can therefore only spread when it reaches the people, and when it reaches them in a form they are able to accept. Now consider: can our scholars reach every individual in the world? Fifteen missionaries — no, even a thousand missionaries — cannot carry guidance to fifteen thousand. If someone says, "The whole world is familiar with the name of our Community," we respond: does a thirsty man's merely knowing the location of water save him from thirst? Can he drink the water when he is told — or himself suspects — that it contains poison?
Water has been placed before the people, but it has been offered in such a way that for the greater part of them it arrived through the hands of enemies. The enemies say: "This man who claimed to be the Promised Messiah is a liar and an impostor. His followers neither fast, nor pray, nor perform Hajj, nor pay Zakat — they follow an entirely different religion altogether." In such circumstances, how can people possibly accept guidance? So it is false that a few scholars can convey the message to the entire world, and it is equally false that the opponents are conveying Ahmadiyyat in the right manner.
If someone were to say: "Even if we all join together, we still cannot carry guidance to the whole world," we respond: at the very least we can stand before God exonerated, saying that as far as we were able to carry the message, we did so to the best of our ability. And when the entire Community conveys the truth — and does so in the form in which the world is able to accept it — then the following year more people will join us, and then more the year after that, and so on, until a great portion of the world comes toward the truth.
So if there is any hope of success, it lies only in this: that every individual member of the Community understands their duty. Shortly before the Adhan today, as I was receiving and reading notes, the words Hayya 'ala al-Falah — "Come to success" — reached my ears, and a particular feeling arose in my heart. I reflected: the Mu'adhdhin stands as a representative on behalf of all Muslims. He stands alone, yet calls out: "Come, one and all, to success and to guidance." Now, is he saying this on his own behalf? Certainly not — because sometimes he is a small child, sometimes he is blind, sometimes he is unlearned. The truth of the matter is that he is not speaking for himself; he speaks on behalf of the entire world of Islam. The strength of all Muslims stands behind him.
Now let us ask: do the Muslims on whose behalf the Mu'adhdhin stands calling the world to Islam actually fulfil this call through their words and their deeds? Do they become his helpers in the invitation he makes? When five times a day a man stands and, speaking in our name and on our behalf, calls upon Christians, Hindus, Sikhs — people of every religion — saying: "Come, let us show you the way" — how many Muslims are there who strive to fulfil that call and to prove it true? For the Mu'adhdhin does not have the capacity to say this on his own behalf alone; he says it on behalf of all.
Consider: at the occasion of a wedding, does the host sit silent and idle — thinking that people will come on their own and the feast will arrange itself? No. He calls upon his friends and relatives saying: "Come and help me" — and this is the very sign that he has genuinely invited them. But if someone were to call people for a feast and then sit silently, making no preparations at all, would people believe that he had genuinely invited them, or would they think him a liar?
In the same way, when one person calls the world on our behalf — saying: "Come toward truth, accept guidance" — yet within our hearts that call produces no fervour and no change, will those people not conclude that we are liars who do this only as an empty custom? When we make no preparation and no arrangement for the spiritual feast to which the people are being invited, they will naturally count us among the liars.
But if, alongside the five-times-daily call, a fervour were to arise within us, and a transformation were to take place in our condition, and a new spirit were to be born — and if, alongside the Adhan, our preparations were also to begin — then all but the most extreme opponents would come toward us. For while it is difficult to detect poison mixed into food — poison mixed into milk, for instance, cannot be recognised without a doctor separating and examining the milk — detecting poison in religion has been made easy by God Almighty. Every person can recognise it through their own reason. God has placed within every human mind a kind of chemical examiner's office for discerning matters of religion.
The faculty to decide whatever doubt arises in matters of religion has been placed within the minds of the people themselves. If we only demonstrate that we have genuinely extended the invitation, and if every person who enters the mosque is instilled with a living spirit — then I believe people's attention will immediately turn toward us.
So remember: you can never succeed until all of you recognise your own duty and sincerely invite people toward guidance. If you leave the Mu'adhdhin alone, you will never attain success. Leave him not alone. What standing does the Mu'adhdhin have to call on his own behalf? He himself is sometimes not even filled with spiritual nourishment, and sometimes he is no more than a hired employee. It is therefore the duty of every individual of the Community that, having arranged the Adhan as an invitation, they also make full preparation and provide every means for it.
May Allah grant our Community the ability to understand its duty; may this idle and unworthy spirit be driven out from among us; and may every single person among us be made ready to carry guidance forward — so that the truth, without which there is no peace and no security in this world, may spread through us across the entire earth.
(Al-Fazl, 19 October 1923)
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