When the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) sent Mu'aadh to Yemen, he taught him how to call to Allah, and guided him to the path of righteousness and reform. He ordered him to call people to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Then he said to him (PBUH):
(If they obey you, then tell them that Allah has enjoined upon them five prayers).
After that, he (peace be upon him and his family and companions), added to him saying:
(If they obey, then tell them that Allah obliges them to give charity from their wealth taken from their rich and given to their poor).
This is an agreed upon Hadith in which Al Mustafa (PBUH) teaches all proselytizers, as well as all people of education till Doomsday, how the arrangements of calling to Allah should be, and how man can reform the others when he understands the starting point and the vision of purpose.
Whoever reads this Hadith will notice that the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) directed, first of all, the Muslims to have faith deeply-rooted in their hearts before directing them to worship and treatment. He (PBUH) called his messenger and taught him how to call to Allah so that faith, which constructs the heart, be the starting point to reforming society and its setting it aright, for righteousness of the community, based on worship and its reformation when it is directed to right dealings, cannot be achieved but by making faith deeply fixed in the hearts.
When we have the illusion that we can do something without having our starting point: belief in the Exalted Allah and in the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH), we achieve nothing.
Everyone who reads the Qur'an finds that the Exalted Allah repeats the statement "Those who believe", then after it, He directly mentions the statement "and do good deeds", so that man realizes that good deeds cannot be done unless the heart becomes constructed with faith. Only when the hearts turn to the Exalted Allah, the fruits of good deeds appear. Consequently, after the heart becomes constructed with faith, man will not be bribed, and the one who does mischief on the earth will be restrained from doing evil.
Read the exalted Allah's words as He teaches us how the good example is: "Our Lord! We have heard a crier calling unto Faith: 'Believe you in your Lord!' So we believed" (Al Imran, 193).
In Arabic, the word Munadi (caller) indicates remoteness, because the caller does not direct his speech only to the near. He rather lets the near and the far hear him.
But what does he make them hear?
He lets them hear the call to faith that softens their hearts and removes their coverings, endears Allah to them, and makes the image of Muhammad (PBUH) exist in their mirror; the image that reminds them of the Hereafter.
For example, read the following words of the Exalted Allah in Surat Qaf: " Qaf: by the Glorious Quran {you are Allah's Messenger}. But they wonder that there has come to them a Warner from among themselves. So the Unbelievers say: This is a wonderful thing! What! When we die and become dust, {shall we live again?} That is a {sort of} Return far {from our understanding}". They denied the Hereafter and Warning and denied sending the Warner by the Exalted Allah as well.
"We already know how much of them the earth takes away: with Us is a Record guarding {the full account}. But they deny the truth when it comes to them: so they are in a confused state", i.e., they are in a state of bewilderment, and their hearts are confused. If their hearts were emptied of the objects, and turned to the Lord of the objects, they would believe in the Qur'an, and they would have fallen prostrate and cried in awe of Allah at hearing the words of Ar Rahman (Allah).
Hence, their sickness and disease are caused by their confused hearts. The Exalted Allah does not accept the confused hearts. He rather wants our hearts to turn to Him, and to be solely devoted to Him.
Mercy be upon the one who said: "The shared work is not accepted (by the Exalted Allah), and He does not draw near the shared heart".
But what does the Exalted Allah say after describing the disease, and presenting the medicine?
He said: "Do they not look at the sky above them? How We have made it and adorned it, and there are no flaws in it? And the earth We have spread it out, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and produced therein every kind of beautiful growth {in pairs}".
Can't you see these signs?
Can't you see the dry seed you plant in the earth and see the marvels of the Exalted Allah when He splits it, and afterwards, out of it comes a green plant that glorifies the Exalted Allah and says: There is no God but Allah…?
"To be observed and commemorated by every devotee turning {to Allah}". This is how the Exalted Allah makes the hearts be enlightened so that they see His Greatness, and remember their poverty, their indigence, their servitude, and recognize the uniqueness of the Exalted Allah in His Lordship.
"And We send down from the sky Rain charged with blessing, and We produce therewith Gardens and Grain for harvests; and tall {and stately} palm trees, with shoots of fruit stalks, piled one over another; As sustenance for {Allah's} slaves". This does not come out of absurdity, but the Exalted Allah does all that to feed us and provide us with sustenance, and because He takes care of us and has mercy upon us, as He is more merciful to us than the mother to her child.
Consequently, Allah's Mercy and care are manifest to the hearts to see. "The merciful get the mercy of Allah. Have mercy on those who are on the earth, and the One Who is in heaven will have mercy on you", this is said by the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) in a Hadith known by the people of knowledge. They know that it is a Hadith chained by oneness. Every time a person relates it to another, he finds that the other tells him that it is the first time he hears this Hadith.
This is how Mercy is manifest.
When we watch Allah's Mercy reflected in the mirror of our hearts, it is changed into mercy in our behavior. How wonderful that the people of Aleppo crowd in a gathering Masjid.
Why do we prevent children from entering this blessed Masjid?
I have found that some of the brothers prevent children from entering Al Masjid, and I said to myself: Did not our Master, Muhammad (PBUH) reduce his prayer when he heard the crying of a child?
By bringing children to Al Masjid, we aim at making the child a plant in it ..
We do not want to bring a child that may contaminate Al Masjid, but when we stand in Al Masjid, young and old, and raise our hands to Allah, we hope that we may get Allah's Mercy for the sake of our children, for the sake of the old, and for the sake of the grey-headed persons among us.
This is one of the scenes of the Qur'an. Then He said: "And We give {new} life therewith to land that is dead; thus will be the Resurrection". This is because the Exalted Allah wants to say to us that gathering the bodies on the Judgment Day is like this scene we see before us, that is, getting the green plant out of the dry seed.
Then He presents the scene of the rejecters of faith in whose hearts faith is non-existent. He observes this picture and presents it to us so that we be away from it. He said: "Before them was denied {the Hereafter} by the People of Noah, the Companions of the Rass, the Thamud,The Ad, Pharaoh, the Brethren of Lut, The Companions of the Wood, and the People of Tubba; each one {of them} rejected the messengers, and My warning was duly fulfilled {in them}". Each one of them was far away from faith and away from awareness of Allah.
"Were We then weary with the first Creation, that they should be in confused doubt about a new Creation? It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than {his} jugular vein" (Qaf, 1-16).
This is how the Qur'anic address is expressive of faith. We cannot understand how Abu Bakr spent all his wealth unless we understand that his action emanated from faith.
Why did Khubaib (ABPWH), when he was crucified before the unbelievers, say:
I don't mind if I am killed a Muslim,
In whatever the way I am killed,
In the cause of Allah, for if He wishes,
He can bless my torn apart limbs.
We cannot understand this attitude unless we know that it emanates from faith.
Let us read, as well, the story of Omar (ABPWH), the Prince of the Believers, when he was roaming the streets of the city and heard a good girl say to her mother: "Do not mix milk with water because Omar prevents that".
Her mother said: "Omar? Where is Omar? Omar does not see us".
The good girl answered: "But, where is the Lord of Omar?
This was the righteousness of society.
Al-Bayhaqi narrated in his She'b that once Ibn Omar (ABPWTH) passed by a shepherd in the wilderness, and said to him: "Give me a sheep".
The shepherd said: "I am entrusted with it. It is not mine".
Ibn Omar said to him testing him: "Say to its owner that a wolf has eaten it".
The shepherd said: "But, where is Allah?"
This is how society feared Allah. This was how glorifying Allah in the hearts resulted in good behavior. We cannot achieve righteousness in behavior unless we expose our hearts to the causes of faith and the causes of its increase, one of which are:
Listening to the caller: "Our Lord! Lo! we have heard a crier calling unto Faith", and the caller was Muhammad (PBUH), " 'Believe you in your Lord!' So we believed" (Al Imran, 193). Oh our Lord, we have answered Your Messenger, so our hearts turn to You.
Another one is reciting the Holy Qur'an: "And when the revelations of Allah are recited unto them they increase their faith" (Al Anfal, 2).
Another is frequent visiting to Allah's Houses, so that the heart becomes more intimate with Allah's House than his own house. Consequently, the Beloved, Al Mustafa (PBUH) said: "If you see a man frequently visit the Masjid, testify for him to have faith".
We are not in the process of talking about the causes of faith, but we should point out to this fact as many who aim at reforming society may be ignorant of. No reformation of society can be achieved but by belief in Allah, and by remembering the greatness of the sent, the Beloved, our Master the Messenger of Allah (PBUH). Only when the hearts recognize this meaning, we shall see our markets clean, and our behavior pleasing to the Exalted Allah.
Oh Allah, direct us to what makes You satisfied, and make from those who listen to wisdom and follow the best of it.
I say my words and ask Allah's forgiveness.