Only at that time can they believe that they too can become...

Only at that time can they believe that they too can become good citizens and can free their hearts from the feelings of envy and grudge. There were some hypocrites who used to say that the only means of maintaining law and order was that the people should remain divided into two groups - those who were satiated, and those who were hungry.

According to them it was not necessary for the satiated to submit before the exigencies of life - the life which is loved by all - nor was it necessary for them to desire any change in their own condition or that of others. They wanted that status might be maintained in the world. According to these hypocrites the hungry were also not entitled to claim their usurped right nor could they cry for the loaf which had been snatched away from them and placed on the dinner table of the capitalists.

If a hungry person claimed his rights and protested against bread being pulled out of the mouth of his children, he was styled to be an infidel and a mischief-monger, who disturbed the people leading a peaceful life. These hypocrites resorted to new devices every now and then to protect the means of their lives of enjoyment and pleasure and to keep the indigent persons enslaved. They used various weapons in the remote as well as the near past, to achieve these ends.

Their main weapon was the wrong interpretation of the religious orders. This policy has not been peculiar to the Muslims. It has been adopted by all hypocrites claiming to profess Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

The most simple weapon, of which the hypocrites took advantage, was their claim that the Prophets have invited the people to abstemiousness, insisted upon forsaking worldly pleasures and affluence, preferred indigence and poverty, and encouraged the life of contentment and inaction instead of making any effort.

[^1] The hypocrites give much publicity to their abovementioned views and desire that the common man should accept them as correct, so that others may remain deprived, and they themselves may continue to be rich and may enjoy the pleasures of life. It is necessary that to counteract their false propaganda we should clarify the true position. It is only by doing so that we can find out the foundation on which the policies of Ali and the orders given by him were based.

It is true that the world was removed from under the feet of Muhammad and spread under the feet of others. All the worldly pleasures and adornments were prohibited for him.