We all need to be preached. Every society requires preaching and reminders. Preaching is spoken word that can calm the heart to softness. It removes hard heartedness and controls anger and lust. It calms desires and beautifies the soul.
Every single person requires some form of preaching and advice. A person may survive without another person’s teachings, but preachment is a must. Because, it is one thing to know something, but another to be reminded (of your obligations) by a pious believer.
If the preachment is from the word of faith, then it has a deeper effect. It is religious preaching that affects more hearts and humbles them. But apart from preaching to come from the words of faith, it is best that he person saying them should be affected by the words themselves, so that his/her words would be coming from the heart.
Thus it is crucial that people hear preaching, that they be reminded of the Lord, that they be awaken to the fact of death, that they understand the consequences of their sins; for them to hear of the grave and the Day of Judgment, and to hear about Divine Justice. This is a necessity for all, and no society is needless of this matter.
It is along these lines that Imam Baqir al-Ulum (PBUH) has said, “…if the scholars withhold preaching and guidance, they have betrayed (all); and if they see a person who has lost his path, and do not guide him to the right one, they have done very wrong, for Allah (SWT) has taken their oath in His book to invite people to good and forbid them from evil, and to help piety and good works…1”
The words of Imam Baqir (PBUH) require the attention of preachers from one end, and the return and acceptance of the preached on the other.
Excerpt taken from the book Khetabe wa Manbar by Professor Shahid Murteza Motahhari (with minor changes)
The Roshd Website congratulates all Muslims, especially you dear friend, on the birth anniversary of the heir of knowledge of the Prophets and the fifth Divine guardian,
Imam Muhammad ibn Ali al-Baqir (PBUH)
Footnotes:
1. Al-Kaafi, vol. 8, pg. 54