 We cannot know Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. This is a very common objection that look Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala is beyond our understanding We should not talk about Allah. We should just talk about Muhammad and Ali Muhammad alayhumu-salaam because they are within our reach My question is Can anyone here stand up and claim that they can understand Muhammad and Ali Muhammad Is there a man yet born who can say that I have Ma'arifa of Nur Muhammadia? Is there? You will not find a Muslim unless he is a madman who will tell you That I know who Hussain is. I will tell you who is Hussain. Is there anyone who can say I have Ma'arifa of Hussain? So that means now let's not talk about the Imams as well because we don't have their Ma'arif Right, let's just talk about ourselves So here's the problem. The Quran is there, but I can't talk about it because we're not supposed to understand this Only the Imams can understand that right? They were not here to teach us about the Quran. The Quran is only for them Now when I Listen to what the Imams are saying. I look at Nahjul Balaghah I see Amir al-Mu'minin al-Salaam is talking about Tawheed every other sermon He's praising Allah describing things in very deep philosophical terms. I look at Kitab al-Irshad of Sheikh Mufeed I find Imam al-Sadaq al-Rasalaam is having philosophical debates with atheists. I look at Sheikh Sadukh's Ayun al-Akhbar al-Ridha two volumes The Imam is having debates with people of all kinds of faiths deep deep philosophical debates on proof of God Existence of God and so on and so forth. I Look at Hadith mufaddal of the six Imam again. There is profound ideas being taught there I look at the Hadith of the six Imam He says Allah revealed Surat al-Ikhlas, Surah Qulhu Allahu Ahad and the last verses of Surat al-Hadeed Because he knew there will come a future generation in time who will be able to understand the meaning of these verses What do I do with all this Hadith? So I have the Quran, but I'm not supposed to comment on it I have the Hadith, but we're not supposed to talk about it We're only supposed to talk about the Imams themselves The question is is this fair to the Imams? Are we being fair to them? And that is why I have said this time and time again that when people ask me to define the prophet and the Ahlul Bayt Who are they? My standard definition to everyone is first and foremost. They are teachers of Tawheed They are teachers of Tawheed the main reason why any messenger of God came was to guide people back to God To show them how to journey towards God and we said that journey is not physical and the Imams as the heirs To the prophets their mission is the same. They are teachers of Tawheed. Now. Is it not ironic? That our Imams have the most profound and the deepest understanding of Tawheed But our enemies call us grave worshipers and the most repulsive understanding of Tawheed is the Tawheed of the Wahhabi Because the Wahhabi's God sits on a throne On Thursday nights he physically comes down and then he goes up On the day of judgment he puts his left foot in the fire of hell until the fire of hell says enough enough When the fire of hell says halim hal min mazid hal min mazid You know are there any more? Yawmanakululi jahannam halim talaati then God puts his left foot in the fire of hell and hell says enough enough Or Lord because his left foot is mashallah right The most repulsive Tawheed is that of the Wahhabi, but he is called Muahid and The highest understanding of Tawheed is mine, and I am called a grave worshipper Where did we drop the ball? Where? I Will tell you where we dropped the ball we dropped the ball because we took the Imams, but not their teachings We took the Imams, but we didn't take their teaching Even when we take the praise right from our Imams Who is the Imam? We praise the most Amir al-Mu'mineen, Ali ibn Abi Talib, salawatullahi wa salamu alayhi We say Ali is the madhar ilahi He manifests Divine attributes right there are people who speak of him in glowing terms of How Ali demonstrates things why people were misguided and the thought Ali was God Right when Ibrahim alaihi salam challenges Nimrod and tells him that my God brings the dead back to life The king kills a man and spares another one and says I can do the same thing Then how does Ibrahim defeat him? He says my Lord brings the Sun from the east and sets it in the west You bring it from the other side if you're God Ali did that So he manifests things that give people reason to say he is God right But who is Ali now what we do is we praise him and praise him and praise him to say look at how God manifested his power his Knowledge his ability in Ali Amazing definitely But then we stop there we forget that the reason why Ali came was to point us to Allah. We said don't talk about Allah That is too deep and in doing that we are unfair to Ali because if he came now he would be disappointed and And I've given this example before that if you take an infant in your hand and you see a full moon before you and You point to the full moon The infant will look at your finger. He will not look at the moon Because he doesn't have the maturity to look that far and the more you wag your finger and say look look look at that Beauty you're gonna look at your finger Everything besides God is an ayah So Ali is saying look at Allah and he does a miracle look at Allah He lifts the gate. He is showing you the power of Allah. We are looking at Ali. We're not looking at Allah He is trying to show us Something and I will give you proof for this When you ask Amir al-Mu'minin himself to describe himself in the most glowing terms after the demise of the prophet Blessings and peace be with him. What does he say? He says ma lilahi ayatun akbar minni Allah does not have a sign or an ayah greater than I. I am the greatest sign of Allah He describes himself Undoubtedly he is naba ul-Azeem. He is the greatest news of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala after the prophet But when you praise Ali and you bring him to that level after that as well Let mankind see The God that Ali introduces in Nahjul Palagh So that they understand who are the rightful owners of Tawheed that Tawheed should come from the teaching of the Ahlu al-Bayt and Not from those who are their enemies