The Fate of the Greats

The Fate of the Greats

1985 2 February 6-7 The Fate of the Greats (428) Umar Ibn Khattab was, in his capacity as Caliph, delivering a speech in Medina. One of the congregation rose and administered him this warning: “By God, Umar, if we detect any crookedness in you then we will put you straight with our swords.” Audacious and insolent though these words appear, Umar did not object to them; neither did anyone in the congregation challenge the man’s right to address Umar in this way. The Companions were used to criticism of this nature among themselves. An atmosphere of healthy criticism, in which people had every right to speak their minds, endured for about two generations after the Prophet. There was no restriction on what people said, as long as they looked into a matter carefully before pronouncing judgment on it: only criticism without prior investigation was disapproved of. There can only be one reason for the atmosphere of tolerance that prevailed during the time of the Companions and the generations that immediately succeeded them: for those people only God was great. They lived in awe of His greatness alone. As far as they were concerned all human beings were God’s servants. Why should they object, then, when one person criticized another? They were conscious of only God’s greatness, and criticism of one human being by another did not diminish anything from the greatness of God. In modern times, however, things have changed. Try criticizing any leading personality, anyone who is great in the eyes of men; it does not matter how intellectually sound and well-researched one’s criticism is, that person’s followers will rise in anger. Clearly, the reason for this is that people attribute greatness to humans, and to see the objects of their veneration brought low is more than they can bear. This is true of Muslims just as much as others. “God is great” are just words they utter in prayer: in practice it is the greatness of others besides God that dominates their lives. The aura of greatness that surrounds humans in this world has no real substance. It is just a facade put on for the test of men. It is those who can see through this facade, and realize that no one besides God has any real greatness, who will be successful in the next world, where only His greatness will remain. As for those who let the greatness of mere mortals rule their lives, their greatness will perish and they will be left out in the cold: the ones in whose shadow they had lived will be there no more to tower over them.