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Guidance and Misguidance
This page gathers what Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī teaches about guidance across al-Tasnim, chiefly in his commentary on “Guide us on the straight path” in Sūrah al-Ḥamd and on the guidance promised to Adam’s children: what guidance is and its kinds, the one straight path, who guides, why people go astray, and what following guidance brings. Why guidance must reach people through the prophets is answered in the theme on Prophethood, and how Satan leads people astray in the theme on Iblīs. Each answer is a short summary of his words, with links that open the passage in al-Tasnim.
What guidance is
Is guidance about finding the way, or about having a goal?
Both, and they have different opposites. Guidance as against misguidance (ḍalālah) concerns the path: one who knows the path and walks it rightly is guided, one who does not is astray. Guidance as against deviation (ghawāyah) concerns the goal: the deviator is the aimless person. So those who have a goal but do not know the way are astray, and those who do not know the destination at all are deviators. Guide us on the straight path (1:6) is first of all guidance to the way, but the straightness of the path and the description of those who walk it also require having the goal in view.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Subtleties and Allusions
What is the difference between legislative and existential guidance?
Legislative guidance is guidance through revelation and law: showing the way, by receiving the law from the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Infallibles. Existential (takwīnī) guidance is taking a person to the destination, and it has no fixed bounds. It is given to one who has already walked part of the way: whoever has faith in God, He guides his heart (64:11); those who strive in Us, We will surely guide them to Our ways (29:69); those who are guided, He increases them in guidance (47:17). This second guidance is a reward, felt as an inner pull towards good deeds that makes the rest of the journey easy.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Subtleties and Allusions
Is “guidance” only the Prophet and the Book?
No. In when guidance comes to you from Me (2:38) the word is unrestricted: it includes every complete rational proof and every reliable transmitted proof. Some argued from the contrasting verse about those who deny Our signs that guidance here means only the Prophet and the Book. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī answers that a definitive rational proof, the basis of monotheism and of reasoning about religion, is as much a sign of God as a reliable report, and denying it leads to the same end. The Qur’an itself argues rationally and blames those who reject sound reasoning.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:38–39 · The Extensive Guidance of God
The straight path
What is the straight path?
The path of uprightness as against the path of crookedness. As to what it is, the Qur’an names it: the upright religion, a straight path, a correct religion, the way of Abraham (6:161). It is called Abraham’s way because he presented the most outstanding method, and a ḥanīf is one who keeps to the path without leaning right or left.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Detailed Exegesis
Why is the path always one, but the ways of misguidance many?
In the Qur’an ṣirāṭ is always singular, while sabīl also appears in the plural: This is My straight path, so follow it, and do not follow other ways (6:153). The straight path cannot be plural because it belongs to God, and there is only one divine path. The paths of God (subul Allāh) that He promises to those who strive (29:69) are not other paths beside it: they are the smaller roads that join the highway, as sound ethical and legal teachings join the straight path of tawḥīd, while deviant ways lead off to polytheism.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Detailed Exegesis · Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Detailed Exegesis
Is there a crooked path alongside the straight one?
No. Asking for the straight path and not that of those who incurred wrath or those who are astray does not mean there are three paths, one straight and two crooked. There is only one path: the guided walk it straight, and others make it crooked, seeking to make it crooked (7:45). God has created no crookedness, in the world, in the religion or on the Day of Judgment; were it not for free, responsible human beings, there would be no misguidance at all, for everything else is on the straight path, glorifying God. Misguidance is not a second path but the absence of the straight one.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 7 · Detailed Exegesis · Surah al-Hamd · Verse 7 · Detailed Exegesis
Who guides
If God is the Guide, how can the Qur’an and the Prophet guide too?
The Qur’an attributes guidance to God, God guides whom He wills to a straight path (2:213), and also to the Qur’an (17:9), the prophets (21:73), the Prophet (42:52), and the righteous among Moses’ people (7:159). This does not compromise God’s being the one Guide, just as obeying the Prophet does not compromise worship of God alone. Attributing guidance to God is attributing it to the essential Guide; attributing it to others is attributing it to aspects of His guidance, not to a guide besides Him. No one but God is ever independent in guiding.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Subtleties and Allusions
Who guides the prophets and the Imams?
God, directly. The prophets and Imams also asked God for guidance to the straight path, and what came to them came through special angels and existential, not legislative, revelation, since no human being is the means of their guidance. Hence God tells the Prophet of the earlier prophets, those are the ones whom God has guided, so follow their guidance (6:90): the true model is not the prophets alone but the divine guidance they followed. Their free will remained intact throughout.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 6 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 2:38–39 · The Effects of Guidance
Must the guide himself be guided?
Yes. One who guides others to God’s command, as the Imam does, must himself be guided by the essence of divine guidance. One who calls to the truth without needing a school or teacher stands higher than one who still needs direction from others. The Imam guides by divine knowledge, not only by outward teaching and warning, and leads others to the station he himself reached by the inner path.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:124 · Subtleties and Allusions
Why people go astray
Does God lead people astray?
Not from the beginning. In Sūrah al-Ḥamd, God attributes blessing to Himself, those whom You have blessed, but not wrath or misguidance: the verse does not say “those You were angry with” or “those You led astray”. Nothing but good and mercy comes from God. His misguidance and anger are a punishment: it is the wrongdoers who go astray by their own bad choices and so come under His wrath. Abraham kept the same courtesy, attributing illness to himself and healing to God (26:80), while it was Satan who said to God because You led me astray (15:39).
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd · Verse 7 · Detailed Exegesis · Surah al-Hamd · Verse 7 · Detailed Exegesis
Then how can misguidance be attributed both to Satan and to God?
The Qur’an attributes Adam and Eve’s slip and their leaving the Garden to Iblīs. In the language of philosophy, Iblīs is the near cause and God the far cause, the near acting within the power of the far. In the language of gnosis, which sees existence as manifestation, under the unity of God’s acts there is no real cause but God, and attributing the act to Iblīs is attributing it to the place where it appears.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:36 · Subtleties and Allusions
What guidance is withheld from the faithless?
When God says Indeed God does not guide the faithless lot (5:67), it is not legislative guidance that is meant, for that has been given to all. It is the guidance of enabling grace (tawfīq): God brings the plots of those who lay in wait for the religion to nothing, so that they are left disappointed. It is the counterpart of the verses on the plotting of the unbelievers, and God is the best of devisers (3:54).
Read in al-Tasnim: Key Verse 5:67 · Tafsir al-Tasnim – Verse 5:67
Why do some turn away from the one path?
The path of guidance is one: if the Jews and Christians believe as the Muslims believe, they too are guided. If they turn away, they are only in discord (2:137): by separating themselves they split society, believers on one side and themselves on the other. Turning away may be from all of the truth or from part of it; either way it is turning away from the whole.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:137 · The Aversion of the People of Discord from the Path of Guidance
Following guidance
What does following guidance bring?
On the principle of complete tawḥīd, the only life-giving obedience is following divine guidance, and it is the one factor for a society’s salvation. Its fruit named in the verse is freedom from fear and grief: whoever follows My guidance, they will have no fear, nor will they grieve (2:38). On a day when everyone is afraid and sorrowful, the true followers of guidance are kept from fear and grief.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:38–39 · The Effects of Guidance · Verse 2:38–39 · The Effects of Guidance
Does guidance take away human freedom?
No. Divine guidance moderates freedom without suspending it. It suits both the spiritual nature and the bodily make-up of human beings, tells true needs from false desires and right means from wrong, frees people from extravagance and luxury, and leads them to kindness, justice and a good life. Enjoying the world, for example, becomes a fair provision (11:3) rather than unbridled indulgence. And people remain free to accept or reject it: We guided him to the way, be he grateful or ungrateful (76:3).
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:38–39 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 2:38–39 · Subtleties and Allusions
See also: Prophethood · Iblīs · Tawḥīd