Support him as he supports you...

Support him as he supports you; when he is traveling guard his property and honor. When he returns hurry to see him, give him respect as if you were his and he were yours. If he is fortunate, give thanks to Allah for his gladness. If he is in difficulty, help him.” Watchfulness by the People Cod has created white blood-cells in our bodies to be vigilant like guards against microbes, the enemies of the body's health; to defend against invasion, so that no disorder occurs in the human constitution.

This can be a clear model for Muslims to be awake concerning events in their own society like watchmen and guards, so that whenever spirituality and goodness and rightness fall captive into the clutches of evil and falsity they can root it out, and, if necessary, give their life for this serious thing. Otherwise, of the society, nothing will be left but a lifeless corpse.

For if men remain silent in the face of every injustice and impertinence, and stay quiet like a lagoon, they will create an atmosphere for breeding worms and leeches. Their brightness will soon become filthy, stinking and polluted. So, like the irregular waves of the roaring seas, society must always be struggling, moving, attacking encroachments and shaking up so that impurities can have no effect on its existence.

To create a living society, Islam has let it be known that the questions of attentiveness and watchfulness by the people is one of the most necessary cubes of the Muslims and always warns them that the duties of society are of equal weight and on an equal footing with individual duty, and that Muslims must also satisfy their religion by this great means. In this area the Qur’an gives two commandments as practical advice: bidding to good ( amr bil-ma'ruf ) and forbidding evil ( nahy anil-munkar ).

Imam Baqir (a.s.) said: “Bidding to good and forbidding evil are great responsibilities on which the other necessary foundations repose.” The day on which Muslim society forgets these two great laws, they will forfeit their greatness. It must not be forgotten that bidding to good and forbidding evil are a great duty for every individual Muslim, and that by putting these into action they can create a healthy, living society.

The Status of Knowledge In the remote past, that is, before Islam, education was not public, and all people did not have the permission or the right to acquire knowledge. Education was the monopoly of a special group, i.e.