An-Naml (The Ant)

80. “Verily you cannot make the dead listen nor can you make the deaf hear the call when they turn away backward.”

81. “Nor can you lead the blind against their straying; you can make none hear save those who believe in Our revelations and who have surrendered.”

In the culture of the Holy Qur’an death and life have been used for both ‘the natural death and life’ and ‘the spiritual death and life’.

Those who are not affected by the word of Truth are considered dead in the culture of the Qur’an, and vice versa. As in many occurrences of it the Qur’an says not to think of the martyr as dead, they are alive, happy, and being provided sustenance with their Lord.

Therefore, those obstinate, stone-hearted ones who are alive are really dead, and the martyr, who have passed away, are really alive. It is better to speak rather more clearly.

There are some stages for life:

1. The vegetal life, upon which the Qur’an says:

“…Who gives life to the earth after its death…”1

2. The animal life, about which the Qur’an says:

“…Who gives you life…”2

3. Spiritual life, as the Qur’an says:

“That it may give admonition to any (who are) alive…”3

That is, they are those who have safe intellect and nature.

It also says:

“…he invites you to that which gives you life…”4

4. The political and social life is for life, as the Qur’an says:

“And in (the law of) retaliation there is (saving) of life for you…”5

5. The life in the next word, as some mortals will say about it:

“…O’ would that I had forwarded (good deeds) for (this) my life.”6

However, in this holy verse, the Qur’an implies that if they do not accept this ‘clear truth’ and your enthusiastic words do not affect in their cold hearts, it is not wonderful for:

“Verily you cannot make the dead listen…”

Your addressees are the alive ones, those who have a lively, vigilant, and truth-seeking spirit, not those dead who seem alive but bigotry, obstinacy, and constant committing sin have suspended their thought and contemplation.

Therefore, the verse continues saying about those who are alive but their ears are spiritually deaf:

“…nor can you make the deaf hear the call when they turn away backward.”

Then by the next verse, the Qur’an implies that if, instead of hearkening ears they had eyes with insight in such case, though the sound did not reach their ears, they might find the Straight Path by signs and marks, but it is a pity that they are blind, too, and as the verse says:

“Nor can you lead the blind against their straying…”

Thus, all the ways of conception the truth are shut to them: their hearts are dead, their ears are deaf, and their eyes are blind.

So, the Qur’an continues saying:

“…you can make none hear save those who believe in Our revelations and who have surrendered.”

In fact these two verses refer to a clear collection of the factors of cognizance and the way of man’s communication with outward world. The sense of discrimination and vigilant intellect is against despondency; a hearkening ear for attracting the words of Truth is against being heedless to them through the ear; and an eye with insight of observing the feature of right and wrong through the eye.

But obstinacy, contumacy, blindly imitation, and sin, make the truth seeking eyes of man blind, make his ear deaf to hear the truth, and also cause his intellect and heart (mind) not to work.

If all prophets, the saints, and the angels come to guide such persons, it will be in vain, because their communication with the outward world of their entity has utterly been ceased and they refer to only themselves.

In other words, he who is physically alive but is so engaged in lusts that he neither hears the cry of an oppressed, nor does he hear the sound of the seeker of the truth, nor does he sees the feature of an indigent, nor does he observe the effects of the greatness of Allah in the scene of creation, nor does he even contemplate about his past and future, such a person in the logic of the Qur’an is dead.

But those whose works are spread and used in the world after their death and whose thoughts, ways of manner, and conditions are introduced as guide, leader and example for others; such persons are spiritually alive forever.

However, we mention this point again that the purpose of Faith and submission is not in that he had accepted the facts of religion from before, so that it is actualization of what has already been actualized, but the aim is that man should have the mood of truth seeking state and humiliation before the command of Allah, else he will never hearken to the words of Divine prophets.

Yes, if the hearer is stone-hearted the true speech, even from a pure and eligible speaker, does not affect on him. It is like a consumed lamp which does not give light by connection with any electricity.

A weak sect from among Muslims have taken the verse:

“Verily you cannot make the dead listen”

as a means for their deviated thought. They say that the Prophet of Islam (S) has passed away and he does not hear any word, therefore it is meaningless that we pilgrimage and, addressing him, state some matters.

The answer to this sect is that the verse is in the position of a simile.

It is like the simile of the heart of a cruel person from the point of effectiveness which is likened to stone, as the Qur’an says:

“Then your hearts hardened after that as stone…”7

Of course, it does not mean that for everything their hearts are like stone, because the Qur’an has accepted the purgatory life for the martyr and there are some narrations cited in the Sunnite and Shi‘ite sources, as follows:

1- Muhammad-ibn-‘Abdul-Wahhab in the book entitled: Al-Hidyat-us-Sunniyyah, P. 41, says:

“The prophet has a purgatory life after his death which is superior to the life of the martyr and he hears the greeting of those who greet him.”

2- There are many traditions recorded in Shi’ite and Sunnite sources in this field that the Prophet (S) and Immaculate Imams (as) hear the words of those who salute them from near and far distances and answer them, and even the deeds of people are said to them.¹

3- It is cited in Sahih Bukhari:

“The Messenger of Allah (S) spoke with the annihilated pagans of the Battle of Badr;”

and when he was asked by ‘Umar, he (S) said:

“By Allah, in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, you are not a better hearer (than them).”9

4- At the end of the Battle of Jamal, Hadrat Ali (as) said:

“Make the corpse of Ka‘b-ibn-Sur sit!”

Then he (as) told him, while he had been killed:

“Woe be to you that did not enjoy your knowledge and Satan caused you go astray and sent you to Hell.”10