Undoubtedly, as long as there is life, there is hope; because death is what extinguishes all hope and takes away the possibility of repentance and reform; as Allah Almighty has said: ﴿وَلَيْسَتِ التَّوْبَةُ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السَّيِّئَاتِ حَتَّى إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَهُمُ الْمَوْتُ قَالَ إِنِّي تُبْتُ الْآنَ وَلَا الَّذِينَ يَمُوتُونَ وَهُمْ كُفَّارٌ ۚ أُولَئِكَ أَعْتَدْنَا لَهُمْ عَذَابًا أَلِيمًا﴾; “And repentance is not for those who do bad deeds until when death comes to one of them, he says: ‘I repent now,’ nor for those who die while they are disbelievers. For them, We have prepared a painful punishment,” and said: ﴿حَتَّى إِذَا جَاءَ أَحَدَهُمُ الْمَوْتُ قَالَ رَبِّ ارْجِعُونِ لَعَلِّي أَعْمَلُ صَالِحًا فِيمَا تَرَكْتُ ۚ كَلَّا ۚ إِنَّهَا كَلِمَةٌ هُوَ قَائِلُهَا ۖ وَمِنْ وَرَائِهِمْ بَرْزَخٌ إِلَى يَوْمِ يُبْعَثُونَ﴾; “Until when death comes to one of them, he says: ‘My Lord! Send me back. Perhaps I do a righteous deed in what I left behind!’ By no means! It is but a word he is its speaker. And behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected.” Therefore, every human must know the value of the moments of his life and think of a way to escape from loss before the moment of his death, which he does not know when it will be. The way is what Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful has stated in His Book in four stages: faith, righteous deeds, exhorting one another to the truth, and exhorting one another to patience; as He has said: ﴿بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ وَالْعَصْرِ إِنَّ الْإِنْسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ﴾; “In the name of Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. By time! Indeed, the human being is in loss; except for those who believe, do righteous deeds, exhort one another to the truth, and exhort one another to patience.” This means that to escape from loss, the human being is obligated to fulfill four main duties: the first is to correct his beliefs through knowing the truth, which is “faith” and is considered an individual duty; the second is to correct his deeds through adherence to the truth, which is “righteous deeds” and is also an individual duty; the third is to invite others to faith, meaning to correct their beliefs through promoting the truth, which is “exhorting one another to the truth” and is considered a social duty; and the fourth is to invite others to righteous deeds, meaning to correct their deeds through promoting adherence to the truth, which is “exhorting one another to patience” and is also a social duty.
Based on this, your obligation in the first stage is to correct your beliefs, in the second stage to correct your deeds, in the third stage to correct the beliefs of others, and in the fourth stage to correct the deeds of others. It is not hidden that observing this order is essential; because you cannot correct your deeds unless you have corrected your beliefs; considering that beliefs serve as the foundation of deeds, and if the foundation of deeds is not correct, then the deeds will not be corrected either; rather, they will come to nothing; as Allah Almighty has said: ﴿أُولَئِكَ لَمْ يُؤْمِنُوا فَأَحْبَطَ اللَّهُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ ۚ وَكَانَ ذَلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسِيرًا﴾; “They did not believe, so Allah made their deeds come to nothing. And that was easy for Allah,” and His righteous servant, His Eminence Allamah Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani
has said:
Faith and righteous deeds are intertwined, like these two fingers, -and he joined between the index finger and the middle finger- and neither of them will benefit you without the other. Faith is that you have correct belief, and one who does not have correct belief will never succeed, even if he is one of the most devout worshipers. So put your belief in the balance of the intellect and present it to the Quran and the Sunnah, lest you go astray.
He has also said:
Will a building remain firm in its place if it has no foundations?! Or will a person benefit from the other organs of his body if he has no head?! Or Will Hajj and fasting be accepted from one who does not perform prayer?! In the same way, if one does not have cognition, he is not a believer, nor does his righteous deed benefit him.
I am telling you the truth: If one dies between Safa and Marwa or while hanging from the curtains of Kaaba, with the righteous deeds of all jinn and humankind, while not knowing the truth and its people from falsehood and its people, he has indeed died a death of the time of ignorance and gone to Hell. From here, it becomes obligatory for you to know the truth and its people from falsehood and its people and give preference to this knowing over every righteous deed, and you shall know that without this knowing, there is no faith for you, and neither prayer nor fasting nor Hajj nor Zakat will benefit you, and you will be among the losers.
Similarly, you cannot correct the beliefs of others unless you have corrected your own deeds; because your bad deeds cast a shadow over your correct beliefs, making them appear incorrect to people; as the poet has said: «وعظ بيعملان، واجب است نشنيدن», meaning that advice from someone who does not act upon it should not be heard! Therefore, His Eminence Allamah Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani
has considered that reforming oneself takes precedence over reforming others; as he has said:
In the outskirts of this vast earth, there are people for Allah who have chosen the remembrance of Allah over the concerns of the world, and trading does not keep them from performing prayer at the beginning of its time. They spend day and night worshipping Allah and convey His warnings to the heedless. They invite others toward justice and act upon it themselves before them.
He has also considered reforming oneself to be the greatest concern of the righteous, saying:
If you find them and see their lofty ranks, how they have spread their book of deeds and are ready for the Reckoning; they reflect on how many great and small deeds they were commanded to do but failed to do, and how many deeds they were forbidden to do but committed! They feel the weight of their sins, have become unable to bear it, and have collapsed on their knees, weeping and writhing as if in pain.
Similarly, you cannot correct the deeds of others unless you have corrected their beliefs; because their beliefs serve as the foundation of their deeds, and if the foundation of their deeds is not correct, then their deeds will not be corrected either and may even come to nothing. Therefore, His Eminence Allamah Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani
has considered it essential to observe priorities when reforming others. In a veiled reference to scholars who have remained silent about the wrong beliefs of people while showing great sensitivity to their bad deeds, he has said:
They see a speck in people’s eyes but do not see a tree trunk in them! They chase flies away from people’s backs but leave camels on them! While one who has been struck by an axe in his forehead does not care about a scratch on his finger, and one who is drowning in the sea is not concerned about his clothes getting wet!
It is understood from here that your lack of success, if you feel it, stems from your failure in all or some of these four duties. Therefore, you should know yourself, in the sense of knowing your shortcomings in each of these four areas; because one who does not know his illness cannot cure it and is like one who shoots arrows in the dark. This is why His Eminence Allamah
has said:
Long live the head that knows its own worth, and eternal may be the heart that perceives its own flaw.