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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Investigations And Challenges Chapter 18: Faith as the Essence of Invitation of the Prophets (Part 3) In this session, we will talk about the “jurisdiction of faith.” We have said that the essence of the invitation of all prophets (‘a) is faith. Now, this question is posed: Faith in what?

The importance of this question becomes clearer when we pay attention to the deviant perspectives on the interpretation of religious concepts that emerged in the recent decades. The youths may not remember that during the movement of Imam Khomeini ( r ), those who were under the name of Islam but with Marxist, atheistic and eclectic tendencies used to embark on interpreting the verses of the Qur’an and explaining religious concepts.

The remnants of these individuals still exist and as in the past, they use labels as such mujahid [struggler], inqilabi [revolutionary] and islami [Islamic].

For example, when they talked about faith which is repeatedly emphasized in the Qur’an, they said, “It signifies that man should have faith in an objective in life and although in the Qur’an it is said, ‘ faith in Allah’ or ‘ faith in the Last Day ,’ these are only manifestations of faith, but they do not indicate that faith cannot belong to other than them.

What is important is to have an ‘objective’ and to have faith in it.” Everybody used to interpret in this way all that have been mentioned in the Qur’an and narrations about the importance of faith and the condemnation of unbelief and polytheism.

They also used to reply in this manner, “Yes, they are all manifestations of faith, and what is important is the essence of faith, and as to what belongs to faith is not important.” Maybe I have mentioned again that at the time a book with the title “Tawhid” [Monotheism] was published and incidentally, its author was a so-called turbaned man and pseudo-cleric advocate of the Fada’iyan-e Khalq .

In the said book, he claimed that what are meant by Allah and faith in Allah are not an external being and faith in an external reality. Instead, they mean morally ideal. Allah means morally ideal; we have to imagine in our minds the ideal good which is the totality of all that is good. This hypothetical and imaginary being is called Allah . The meaning of ‘ There is no god but Allah ’ is nothing but this. It means the negation of all that are other than the morally ideal.

Also, faith in Allah means faith in all goodness.