The Narrative of Awakening

'Day of Kawthar'

It was the 'Day of Kawthar' –Kawthar (abundance) is either a river or a fountain in Paradise. In the midyear 1320 AH/- corresponding with 1902- a child was born in Iran who later on changed the destiny of the nation and that of the Muslim World by his divine uprising. He led a revolution against which the world’s entire dominant powers and all enemies of freedom and nations' independence, lined up since its commencement, and rushed to the arena to suppress it. However, thank God, so far they have met with failure in their efforts to combat his grand achievements, his thought and the school that he proclaimed. That day no one knew that he would be the one whom the future will know as 'Imam Khomeini'. One who once began his uprising will resist against the greatest world powers and defend the independence of the country and the dignity of the Islamic nation (ummah) and will become the reviver of God’s religion in an era when values have undergone a metamorphosis.

 "Surely, thy foe is the one who shall be of no posterity" That very great day the nectar of Guardianship and Imamate streamed on the earth and the Lady of Chastity and Faith - Her Holiness Saddiqah Taherah - Hadrat Fatimah was born destined to be spouse to our eternal Imam of justice and humanism Ali (A.S) to have eleven offspring. These eleven stars of imamate stand on the road to salvation and became a perfect example. The immaculate Imams whose peace and wars; whose prayers and silence; whose patience, knowledge, and life of constant resistance and pain and martyrdom and finally the awaited Occultation, all reveal divine expediencies. All this proves that God’s devotees are never left on their own during periods of dissension and caught in the fences of time or nature. Furthermore, the truth seeker and those who stride in the path of guidance always have a pathfinder and the earth is never left without signs of God. The period of Occultation began while the struggle between the good and the bad continued. Generation after generation, the rebels, mammonists and carriers of vice stood up in their dark front; and on the opposite side, stood firm the faithful believers and the pious men and pure nobles gathered in their lighted plane. The lights of inspiration were cast upon the world, and Islam, conquesting the hearts of God’s good servants, was extending its domain, advancing to the Far East on the one side and to the heart of Europe on the other. A great, unprecedented civilization was in the offing and humankind was witnessing a wondrous leap and evolution in areas of science, literature, culture, arts and all signs of true civilization based on a solid foundation of faith and motives.

The awakened intuitive approaches toward the salvation message of the trusty Prophet were so deep and widespread that even the weakness and cruelty of the incompetent rulers could not stop the advancement of God’s religion. Europe was aflame in the barbarism of the Middle Ages and the materialists ruling over the oppressed servants of God had taken up offensive position behind the holy cross to prevent the message of him—whose advent, Jesus Christ had heralded—from reaching their dark world.

 How surprising and woeful it was that exactly at the time they had gotten ready to do away with the religion of the last divine Prophet, the fires of friction, power-seeking and ruinous factionalism were being kindled on this front. It was at this same time that a variety of causes and elements prepared the grounds for scientific and industrial changes in Europe when machinery and technology fell into the hands of the enemy’s might and their governments.

The spread of new sciences and techniques, the development of which Islam had a major decisive part in, gave prosperity to the stagnant and primitive European community. Instead of seeking a remedy, the rulers and leaders of Muslim lands accepted the shame of negligence and backwardness rather than toil of struggle and crusade. Consequently, the enemies (of Islam) became stronger day after day, extending their possessions. Parts of the Islamic territories were practically and painfully colonized by colonialists. The bitter story of the rule of might and capital, and challenging the Almighty God as well as overt and covert interference of the colonialists in the destinies of the Islamic lands continued for several centuries. In Iran, monarchical dynasties came to power one after another. In spite of constant oppression over the hard-working nation of Iran—a nation that had very early voluntarily accepted the call to monotheism—remained for a long time the vanguard of Islamic civilization and culture. However, tyranny by the monarchs and schism by the neo-colonialists increased, especially now that the enemy had entered the scene under the disguise of development and progress.

Embassies of colonial powers directly involved themselves with and interfered in all aspects of the country’s affairs, even in appointments and dismissal of ministers of state, courtiers and military commanders. It was now, filled with affliction, pain, that wide stretches of Iranian territories, and Islamic homelands were ceded to foreigners by shameful agreements or treaties. Within the country, too, insecurity, injustice and governmental corruption were devastating. The Tobacco2 Boycott Decree in the form of a fatwa (decree) by the great clergyman, the Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, the reformist decries and calls of Sayyid Jamaloddin Asadabadi3 and the uprisings of the ulama in Iran and Najaf against the British colonialism had revealed the might of the Islamic clergy. The British government had recognized the source of danger. Because of this, a wave of anti-clergy challenge and of separation of religion from politics started using various ruses and tricks. Amid all this, the Freemasons and the queer “Westernized” elements were, under assumed intellectualism, fanning the fires inside the country. Mozaffaroddin Shah 4 Qajar, not seeing a foothold for himself among people, had courted the Anglo-Russian support for the fulfillment of his wishes and hopes, and surely, other Islamic countries were bogged down in similar regrettable conditions.

Source:

"The Narrative of Awakening" (Hadith-e Bidari) book by Hamid Ansari

Other Links:

Islamic Solidarity: False motive of the extreme nationalists

Islamic Solidarity: Tendencies of governments toward Islam as a key to solution of problems