(3) WHY ALL THIS DESIRE TO PROLONG HIS
Now we should deal with the second question which is:
Why should Allah, the Exalted, show all. this desire for
this person in particular? Why should the natural laws be
hindered just to prolong his life? Why should the
leadership of the appointed day not be left to a person
born in the future, who will appear then and assume his
expected role?
In other words: What is the use of this long absence
and what is the motive behind it? Indeed many people ask
these questions, yet at the same time none of them is
prepared to accept the Divine answer for them. However we
believe that the twelve Imams form a unique group of
individuals, none of whom could be substituted. But these
people require a social interpretation of the situation,
in the light of tangible realities, for the great
operation of change and the understandable requirements
for the appointed day.
On these bases, we will temporarily disregard the
characteristics that we believe should be fulfilled in
the infallible Imams and ask the following questions:
As far as the expected operation of change, of the
appointed day, is concerned and as far as it is
understandable in the light o f the norms and the
experiences of life, can we consider the prolonged age of
its preserved leader as one of the factors for its
success? And of his ability to lead it in a better way?
We can give an affirmative answer to this question
because of many reasons among which are the following:
First, that the great operation of change requires
from its leader a unique psychological attitude, filled
with a sense of success and a sense of the insignificance
of the mighty existence which he has been prepared to
struggle against and transform into a new civilized
world.
Thus the more the leader's heart is filled with the
triviality of the civilization he is fighting, and the
clearer is his sense that it is no more than a speck of
dust on the long path of human civilization, the more he
is ready from a psychological angle, to oppose, resist
and persevere in his efforts against it until victory is
achieved.
It is clear, therefore, that the scope required from
this psychological attitude ought to be proportionate to
the size of change to be brought about and what needs to
be rooted out of civilization and existence. So, whenever
the opposition is to a mightier existence and a loftier
and deeply rooted civilization, the greater is the thrust
required from this psychological attitude.
Since the message of the appointed day is to change,
in a comprehensive way, a world filled with injustice and
tyranny, it is therefore natural that it is looking for
an individual whose psycho logical attitude is superior
to that whole world; a person whose age exceeds those who
were born in that world and who were brought up in the
shade of its civilization which he is to destroy and
replace with one based on justice and truth.
For whoever is brought up in a deeply-rooted
civilization, that dominates the world with its values
and modes of thinking, would be overwhelmed by it, since
he would have been born while it had been in existence,
and opened his eyes just to see its different aspects,
and would have been brought up under its power and
influence. Unlike that is a person who has deeply
penetrated history, who has come to life long before that
civilization which completes the cycle of the story of
humanity before the appointed day saw the light. He sees
it as little seeds, hardly visible, then gradually
growing and taking roots within human societies, waiting
for the right moment to blossom and appear. Then he
witnesses it, as it starts to grow and advance, sometimes
relapsing, sometimes meeting with success, then when it
begins to prosper and become gigantic, gradually
dominating the destinies of the world, such a man who has
lived through all these stages with sagacity and caution,
watching this giant - (against which he has to struggle)
under that long historical perspective which he has lived
in reality, and not just read about in books of history,
such an individual would consider it as a definite
destiny, unlike Jean Jacques Rousseau's consideration of
the monarchy in France, when he was terrified at the mere
imagining of France without a king, in spite of the fact
that he was one of the heralds, both intellectually and
philosophically, of the evolution of the political
situation that existed in those times. That was because
Rousseau lived in the shade and under the influence of
the monarchy.
On the other hand this individual who has thoroughly
penetrated history, would have the dignity and strength
of history and a powerful sense that all that surrounds
him of civilization and existence was born at a certain
time in history, when the way was paved for its
existence, that it would disappear to the extent that
nothing of it would remain as when there was nothing of
it before it came into existence in the distant or near
past, that the historical life spans of any civilization,
however long they may be, are only limited days in the
long era of history.
Have you not read the chapter of the cave in the
Qur'an (surah al-Kahf)? Have you not read of those
youths who believed in their Lord, whom Allah increased
in guidance, who opposed a ruling pagan existence that
was ruthless and did not hesitate to suppress every
single seed of at- tawhid (Unity of Allah), so
that it might not rise above the level of idolatory. So
these youths became depressed to the point of despair,
once the windows of hope had been closed before their
eyes; so they sought refuge in the cave, where they
begged Allah for a solution to their problem after having
exhausted all the possibilities. For they could not
tolerate the fact that falsehood was ruling,
transgressing and subjugating the truth and suppressing
anyone whose heart showed an inclination towards the
truth. Do you know what Allah did to them? He made them
sleep for three hundred and nine years in that cave and
caused them to rise up from their long sleep and sent
them to the outside world, after that the existence which
had bewildered them with its power and transgression had
collapsed and became a chapter in history that could
frighten no one nor activate anything. They were brought
out so that they could see all this with their own eyes
and learn that falsehood is insignificant.
Indeed if this clear vision had been true in the case
of the people of the cave, with all that it bore of
psychological loftiness and thrust out of that unique
event which prolonged their age by three hundred years,
then the same event could occur in the case of al- Mahdi,
the Expected Leader, whose extended age would make him
see the giant as a dwarf, the tall tree as a seed and the
hurricane as a breeze.
Add to this that the experience that is granted by the
concomitants of those consecutive civilizations and the
direct confrontation with all their movements and
changes, has a great influence on the intellectual
preparation and the deepening of experience of the
Expected Leader, since it puts him face to face with the
many various practices of others, with all they contain
of weakness and strength, and the different aspects of
their errors and accuracy. And this enables him to
classify the social symptoms with a complete awareness of
their causes and their historical circumstances.
Moreover the preserved operation of change, which is
the task of the Expected Leader, is founded on a
particular message, namely the message of Islam.
Therefore, it is natural that in this case, the required
leadership should be more proximate with the original
sources of Islam, that his personality be fully shaped in
an independent way, free from the influence of that
civilization which is subject to his struggle on the
appointed day, unlike that individual who would have been
born and brought up in its atmosphere, whose intellect
and feelings would have blossomed within its frame. Quite
often such a person cannot free himself from the effects
and residues of that civilization, even if he were to
lead a movement of change against it.
Thus, in order that the preserved leader be not
influenced by the civilization he has been prepared to
transform, it is necessary that his personality should be
fully shaped during a previous stage of civilization, as
near as possible to the universal spirit, and in terms of
the principles of that civilized condition, which the
appointed day is aiming at realizing under his
leadership.