“The fruits of faith in human life”, theme of first Ramadan Lecture chaired by King Mohammed VI

King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, accompanied by Crown Prince Moulay El Hassan, Prince Moulay Rachid and Prince Moulay Ismail, chaired the first religious lecture of the holy month of Ramadan at the Royal Palace in Rabat on Wednesday.

The lecture by Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq was titled “The fruits of faith in human life”, inspired from the Quranic verse from Surat An-Nahl: “Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, We will surely bless them with a good life, and We will certainly reward them according to the best of their deeds.”

Toufiq stressed at the beginning of his lecture that the good life promised by the Creator in the Quran is subject to two main conditions, namely faith and good deeds, pointing out that faith sustains the good life and enables man to perform good deeds.

According to him, many exegetes have given different interpretations of the verse, including Tabari, who associates the good life with happiness and contentment, Taalibi, who links it to the sweetness of submission, and Baghaoui, who refers it to lawful fortune, while Ibn Achour has pointed out that both women and men are entitled to the promise of the good life.

Beyond their differences, these interpretations agree on the centrality of the psychological dimension in terms of sensation and reception, man being in both cases called upon to thank the Lord, Toufiq pointed out.

For him, the four missions of the Prophet consist of transmitting revelation; changing the situation of believers starting with a spiritual education called “Tazkiya (purification); teaching obligations and rejection of prohibitions; and learning the wisdom, practical virtues and spiritual knowledge contained in the Holy Book.

The lecturer added that there are many publications that criticize the current world order and fashionable lifestyles, both in their liberal sense and in their philosophical critique of the modernist thinking that underpins them. In this regard, he cited a series of works by Pitrim Sorokin, founder of American sociology at Harvard University and theorist of altruistic and selfless love.

On the possibilities of leading a good life in the current context, he noted that Muslims are doing quite well thanks to their apparent faith, observing, however, that many of them no longer aspire to a good life that combines satisfaction and dignity, but seem to surrender to the deceptive appearances of this life, to well-being that has no other norm than the pursuit of pleasure.

For Toufiq, the role of the state is to create the conditions for a good life through development programs, while the mission of ulema and preachers is first and foremost to remind people, through traditional and new media, families, mosques and schools, of the centrality of the Oneness of Allah, which gives freedom to believers and protects them from temptation.

He stressed that preachers must assume their role in upholding the Quranic precepts, which is also the purpose of the establishment by the King, Amir Al Muminin, of the Higher Council of Ulema chaired by the Sovereign.

Thanks to faith, the Ummah is endowed with enormous energy that needs to be explored and its deep wellsprings released for an overall development in the service of man, its starting point and its ultimate end, the lecturer said.

At the end of the lecture, the King was greeted by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Shawki Allam; Sheikh Mohamed Mansour Sy, representative of the General Khalifa of the Tariqa Tijania in Senegal; Sheikh Moustapha Sonta, General Khalifa of the Tijanis, president of the Section of the Mohammed VI Foundation of African Ulema in Côte d’Ivoire; Sheikh Moustapha Diatra, advisor to the General Khalifa of the Tariqa Muridiya in Senegal; and Sheikh Abdarrahmane Kanta, representative of the official spokesman of the Tariqa Qadiriya in Nyassia, Senegal.

The Sovereign was also greeted by Hassan El Menai, professor at Zitouna University and member of the Higher Islamic Council of Tunisia; Mahmoud Abdou Zouber, president of the Section of the Mohammed VI Foundation of African Ulema in Mali; Lang Delaney Vincent Zayd, president of the Section of the Mohammed VI Foundation of African Ulema in South Africa; and Abdelkader Cheikh Ibrahim, president of the Section of the Mohammed VI Foundation of African Ulema in Somalia.