Due to some considerations, we are anxious to clarify this issue. These considerations will appear in our coming episodes, God willing. But most importantly, if it is necessary for the religion to return, it must be clear that religion will not be returned by the exoteric code. Rather, it will come back by way of the esoteric code. This is what is presented and can be understood from the hadith, “Islam began as something strange and will revert to being strange as it began; so good tidings for the strangers.” It was asked, “Who are those strangers, O Messenger of God?” He replied, “Those who revive my esoteric code when it is forgotten.” We can say, with strong assertion, that the gist of the Prophet Path is the Prophet’s mastery of the words “there is no deity but God;” by this he has risen to a level, which is far higher than the level of the ordinary practitioners.

The ordinary practitioners are recommended to pursue this lofty station achieved by the Holy Prophet. We hear people say that, “This matter is the Prophet’s specialty. It is not our religious duty.” This is what the theologians often say and confront us with when we call on people to follow the way of the Prophet and aspire to the levels of perfections achieved by the Prophet. They say, “This matter is the Prophet’s specialty.” I think that’s the most dangerous phrase that can be spoken, and the most ignorant one. Its danger lies in discouraging people to pursue the path of ascents that are intended for them, which, in fact, are enjoined upon them. The wrongness and ignorance here comes from the fact that the Prophet’s function is ill known to us. The Prophet was not an angel. If he was an angel, people would have to say, he is of a kind different than us, and therefore we cannot achieve the perfections that he has achieved. They may say so, because he was so unique. But the Prophet is a human who eats foods and walks in the marketplaces. He is a human who was promoted by our Lord, by following a course, which became a course for each of us. Our Lord promoted him, raised him, brought him close, and educated him. Then, to reassure us and impress that what we see of great and grand perfections achieved by the Prophet are our inheritance and destiny, He says: There has come to you a Messenger from among yourselves, “There has come to you a Messenger from among yourselves, what you are distress with is grievous to him; he is full of concern for you, for the believers he is full of pity, merciful” (9:128). There has come to you a Messenger from among yourselves!

It is very important for us to emphasize that the perfections achieved by the Prophet are human perfections; they are within our capability and to achieve them we, in fact, have been commanded. The command came through the Prophet, “Say: If you love God, follow me; God will love you” (3:31). This is a command! The instruction, “follow me” is a command just as “establish prayer.” Say: If you love God, follow me; God will love you! God further reveals, “Certainly in the Messenger of God you have a good example” (33:21). A model has been made for us to imitate and to follow as an example, who personifies the Devine perfection that we are commanded to achieve. The saying that, “This matter is the Prophet’s specialty” must be stopped and no sensible person should listen to it and must deter others who say it. Unfortunately, those who say it are the theologians which are in the foreground of educating the people. But we are commanded to pursue the prophetic states of perfection. We are commanded to engage in the prophetic path through copying, mastering, and aspiring to the prophetic stations. The Prophet is not standing at one station, so that the one who aspires to these stations be scorned asked: Do you want to be like the Prophet? Or, might be asked: Do you want to exceed the Prophet? The Prophet is the guide whose actions and progress did not stop the day he joined with the Exalted Companion. The truth is that the Prophet in every moment of his existence today—his life now—is progressing and growing. Yet, he is also the firm hold and support, by copying him and taking him as a model we can reach the higher stations with which we have been commanded and that are intended for us.

With regard to the three levels, exoteric code, esoteric code, and religion, there is another hadith in which our Prophet says, “The exoteric code is my words, the path is my acts, and the truth is my interior state.” These three levels correspond in some way, as well, to the levels of exoteric code, exoteric code, and religion. Some of the “words”, as we have explained, are exoteric code and not esoteric code. This has been clarified. Then, his exclusive acts are path. The path and the esoteric code are the same thing. The path is esoteric code and at the same time, as we have stated, the esoteric code is an upgraded exoteric code. Then the Prophet said, “The truth is my interior state.” Here the exoteric code and path lead to a state. The state is the truth. One can say about the “truth” is that the “truth” is in agreement with reality. The truth corresponds to reality.

The person, whose state is the truth, is the one who is satisfied with reality; following God, does not overstep Him, and neither disagrees nor objects. This is what is referred to by the Prophet when he said, “The truth is my interior state.” As too, “The exoteric code is my words” or in other words, is his prophethood, while “the order is my acts”, that is to say is his esoteric code. Some of his exoteric code is coupled with the exoteric code, for the exoteric code and the exoteric code are overlapping and the difference between them is in degree. For example, the daily five prayers are exoteric code for the ordinary practitioners and are code for the Prophet. We can say that, they are a specifically obligatory code for the Prophet when the late night prayer is added to them. That is to say the Prophet Path is the daily five prayers plus the late night prayer, which he performs after he rouses from sleep. He performs it in three, five, seven, nine, eleven, or thirteen prostrations. He neither exceeds that number in Ramadan nor in any other time. He, of course, did not perform this late night prayer early in the night, as people are doing now with the “tarawih” prayer. Tarawih is not the late night prayer. Some people, when they are about to perform tarawih, say: “Now then! To the rousing prayer, God reward you all.” This is wrong. The rousing prayer is prayed when people rouse from sleep. It is Prophet Path and to be performed at homes. It is oneself prayer to be performed at home; it is not a mass prayer. This late night prayer is in addition to the exoteric code, by which it becomes the Prophet Path or the esoteric code.

Hopefully this matter has become clear, that the exoteric code is something other than the esoteric code and religion is something else also, but the difference between them is a difference in degree. In a sense, the exoteric code, when descended to the ground of the ordinary practitioners, has become a foundation. The path raised above it as a juncture toward religion. The path is at the threshold of religion. The path means the esoteric code, and it is more immersed in religion than the exoteric code. The exoteric code is for the ordinary practitioners, while the exoteric code was exclusively for the Prophet. Acting on the exoteric code and the path or exoteric code yields a state—this is the certainty of the heart in the existence of God. After faith, this state confirms it as certitude. We act with faith that the Prophet is truthful. The Prophet said, “Islam is based on five,” that God commands us to pray, following the twofold word of attestation, to fast, to give alms when we have the money, and to make the pilgrimage when we are able to undertake the journey. In all these we act with faith. Afterwards actions establish this faith increasing it until it becomes certitude. That is the heart’s state of certainty in God, which one can reach by way of acting on the exoteric code. And if added to it, one enters into the Prophet Path. Such an act falls under the prophetic path—exoteric code opens to path or esoteric code, where the esoteric code yields a state. It is this state of the heart which experiences the certainty of God. About it, the Prophet said, “The truth is my interior state.”

Our main concern is to have emphasized that the exoteric code and the esoteric code differ in degree. When the Prophet said, “Those who revive my esoteric code,” he meant his exclusive, personal acts. This, of course, is clear if we take notice of the society at the present time, after fourteen centuries of development in the arena of life, it is now more qualified to understand the Prophet than the society in the seventh century. The present problems, also, cannot be resolved by the exoteric code that was codified for people in the seventh century in all its forms.

It is not possible, rational or religious, to believe that the problems of today’s man, who flew to the moon, can be solved by the same standards, the same texts, and the same alms, which resolved the problems of the man who traveled by camel in the seventh century. But, illusions come to people along with their belief that this is what God wants. People are afraid to think about developing their exoteric code, because they fear that this existing exoteric code may be what God wants. If that is what God wants, God is more aware of our interests than we are. Otherwise He would not have even codified to us at this level. The thing that we want people to be assured of is that the exoteric code is not what God wanted except for considerations of the standard of the time. God wants people to become closer to Him, step by step from Adam to Muhammad; all has been in the course of Islam. However, the exoteric code governs the people’s state of progress or backwardness. Islam cannot simultaneously codify everything God wants for us and for the people who were in the seventh century. The wisdom in codification is to descend and take into consideration the capabilities of people and the needs of the people. The capability of man in the twentieth century is greater than the capability of man in the seventh century. Man’s need in the twentieth century is greater than man’s need in the seventh century. If the Quran had not been readied for this, religion would have ended, and the people would eventually leave it to seek solutions to their problems in civil manners. But the religion was readied with what we call “the original verses.” The original verses were those upon which the Prophet lived. They are the mainstay of the Prophet Path. Lowered, from the original verses, are the subsidiary verses upon which the ordinary practitioners lived.

We now say, since the Prophet Path is such a high level, then we must, in order to bring back religion, revive the esoteric code. And this requires that we rise from the level of the ordinary practitioner to the level of the Prophet, from the level of the exoteric code to the level of the esoteric code. This action has the support and the guidance which directs its progress soundly and not up in the air or blindly. It is rightly guided by shifting within the Quran from one verse to another—from a subsidiary verse to an original verse, from the exoteric code to the esoteric code, from the level of the ordinary practitioners to the level of the Prophet. This matter is very clear if people pay attention to it. In fact, this is the essence of our Call, we the Republican Brothers, for the revival of Islam.

The revival of Islam means to rise from a sub-text in the Quran, which has served its purpose to exhaustion, to an original text that in the past was above the level of the ordinary people and considered abrogated by the sub-text, or what we may call the Meccan Quran followed by the Medinese Quran. The Medinese is the Quran of the subsidiaries, which was revealed after the Emigration and is at the level of the ordinary people’s needs and capabilities. The revelation began with the Meccan Quran, with which the ordinary people were addressed, but fell short of its level and were unable to fulfill its obligations. When, in practice, it became clear that they were incapable of it, the Prophet was commanded to emigrate. Then began the revelation of the Medinese Quran that suits the ordinary people’s level, whereas the Meccan Quran or the Quran of the origins was considered abrogated by the Quran of Medina or the Quran of the subsidiaries, for the former was above the capability of the ordinary people in the past society.

Abrogation cannot be an indefinite invalidation otherwise wisdom would be left behind, because that which is inferior abrogated the more superior content of our religion, and the subsidiaries became preferred over the originals. This continued precedence of the inferior over the superior is a senseless act, and is not an act of wisdom which would fall in line with the Wisdom of our Lord.

If it is clear, from our previous discussion, that the esoteric code is higher than the exoteric code and it is also clear from the text of the hadith that Islam cannot return by reviving the exoteric code, but rather by reviving the esoteric code then we, as advocates for the revival of Islam, should embrace the Prophet Path as code. We can do so at the individual level by copying the Prophet in his way of worship and in his way of living, and at the collective level by upgrading the codification from the exoteric code level to the esoteric code level. The exoteric code is based on the subsidiaries of the Quran, while the esoteric code is based on its origins. Upgrading our codification is based on the Quran by replacing a text with another—by replacing a subsidiary text with an original text. The original text is the subject of the Second Message about which we have already spoken a lot.

Talking about the Second Message will be our next subject, God willing, but what can be said here to conclude this episode, is that the Second Message is not something other than the Prophet Path. The Second Message of Islam is the prophetic path coming back as collective code, because the present global society has become more capable to understand the Prophet than was seventh century society.