He does not say...

He does not say: Do not disgrace others, do not disgrace a Muslim or do not disgrace a community etc. He says: Do not point out to your own faults and defects. This means that to disgrace a Muslim amounts to disgracing your own self. Outwardly, you humiliated others. But inwardly you yourself have become blameworthy and faulty. How and why? This requires deep thinking. Those who have intelligence can see how meaningful and effective are the wordings of Qur’an.

They deal with deep meaning in brief, clear and eloquent phrases. Qur’an is the word of the Lord of Worlds. It is very high and great. Here He says: When one finds fault with another. He, in fact, has made himself faulty. He says about another person: He is miserly and shameless. The Holy Qur’an says: By so saying, you have pointed to your own defects. So do not disgrace yourselves. Apparently, there are three reasons for saying so.

All are to meet the same one and hence are equal The first reason indicated is that all of you are united together. Your spiritual father is same, that is, Muhammad Mustafa. The spirits of all the believers have a kind of unity and sameness. Their father is Muhammad and Ali, from the spiritual viewpoint. From physical point of view also they have one father and one mother, that is, Adam and Eve.

But from the spiritual aspect, their father is one, that is, Muhammad and also Ali as they are one soul. So now, if one disgraces another, he has disgraced his own brother. There is no difference. All are from one source and origin. There are some narrations from Imams. One of them says: Ours is a holy tree. Its root and origin is, our grandfather, Muhammad Mustafa. It has twelve branches, that is the Imams, the first being Ali and the last, the awaited Mahdi.

Leaves of this holy tree are the general Shias. All believing men and women are the leaves of this holy tree. Due to common leaves and common branches they are all united and one. According to another narration: Tomorrow, on the Day of Judgment, there would be the holy tree, Tuba. Rooted in the house of Ali, its branches will extend to the houses of all the Shias in Paradise. Thus every believer is connected with the Tuba tree. Thus if one of them becomes faulty, it means all have become faulty.

If you want to understand this fully, remember that by disgracing a believer Shia of Ali, you have hurt Ali, especially if that person whom you disgraced was a real and true Shia.