Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle

to make them live comfortably. As my Muslim brothers serve me,
I shall serve them in return. Every Muslim should know that all
branches of art are farz-i-kifâya. [1]
To adhere to one of the
branches with this thought in mind is an act of worship. Regardless
of the religious beliefs of the explorers, who may be disbelievers
with a heavenly book or unbelievers without a heavenly book,
every branch of science and arts is incumbent on Muslims to learn;
it is farz for them to acquire mastery over all of them and to try to
be trailblazers in all up-to-date means of war. It is, therefore,
within the purview of Islamic worship to teach and learn with this
intention the sciences and lessons necessary for the achievement of
this end. Everything that a Muslim steady with his daily worships
of namâz does with this intention, is an act of worship. And
everything done by people who do not perform namâz, is sinful.
Then, each and every Muslim should perform their daily prayers
of namâz and do their (other) duties with the thought that they are
performing acts of worship. What bespeaks a person’s good and
correct intention in doing something is their having chosen an
occupation, a job that will be useful to people. In other words, the
occupation chosen should be such as people would suffer
deprivation were it not for it. Then, pleasures, games, and such like
do not have versions within the scope of worship, although they
may be foisted on people’s minds as arts and libertines who
floutingly commit acts of harâm as artists. In fact, arts that will give
no benefit to people should be shunned even if they do not entail
acts of harâm. It was stated as follows in a hadîth-i-sherîf: “The
best trade is that of a cloth merchant, and the best art (occupation)
is that of a tailor.”
[1] Allâhu ta’âlâ’s open commandments are called farz (or fardh). With
respect to extent there are two kinds of farz: 1– When something
commanded is farz-i-’ayn, it has to be executed and practised by each
and every Muslim. Examples of farz-i-’ayn are namâz, fasting, etc. 2–
When an Islamic commandment is farz-i-kifâya, all Muslims will be
sinful if no one executes it. When only one Muslim executes or
practises a farz-i-kifâya, all other Muslims will be absolved from it.
An example of this is acknowledging a Muslim’s greeting. When a
Muslim greets a group of Muslims, which is done by saying, “Salâmun-’alaikum’
or “As-salâm-u-’alaikum,” all the group will be sinful if
none of them acknowledges the greeting by saying, “Wa ’alaikum-ussalâm”.
However, when only one of the group answers by saying so,
it will be as if all of them executed the commandment. Incidentally, it
is an act of sunnat to greet a Muslim or a group of Muslims. Yet it is
farz (farz-i-kifâya) to acknowledge a Muslim’s greeting.
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