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Abu Dhar realized all that. He did not search for his duties or responsibilities, but rather took his
sword, waved it in the air and set out to face his society with his unbeatable sword. But soon the echo of
the Prophet's (PBUH) advice struck his heart, so he returned it to its scabbard. He remembered the
Prophet (PBUH) had said he should not lift it in the face of a Muslim.
"It is not lawful for a believer to kill another believer except by error " (4: 92).
His role was not to fight but to oppose. The sword was not a means of change and reformation, but
the truthful, sincere, and brave word was. The fair word does not lose its path, and its consequences are
not terrifying. The Prophet (PBUH) once said, while surrounded by his Companions, that the earth never
carried above it, nor did the sky ever shade a more truthful tongue than Abu Dhar's. Why should
someone who owns such a truthful tongue and truthful conviction need a sword?
A single word by him hit the target more than uncountable swords. Therefore, Abu Dhar was to
encounter all the governors, the wealthy, and all those who worshipped the worldly life and relied upon
it, thereby representing an even greater danger to the religion which came to be a guide, not a tax
collector; prophethood, not dominion; mercy, not afflication; humbleness, not superiority; equality, not
differentiation; satisfaction, not greed; sufficiency, not luxury and a life of ease full of temptation, with
this life the only goal.
So Abu Dhar went out to face all those challenges, and Allah will judge truthfully between him and
them, and Allah is the Most Just of Judges.
Abu Dhar went out to the strongholds of power and wealth, attacking them one after the other.
Within a short time he became the standard around which the laborers of Islam and the masses gathered.
Even in the remote districts where people had not yet met him, word about him got around and he
became well known until he hardly passed through a land in which his name had not reached the ears of
some the people and without crucial questions being raised which threatened the welfare and worldly
interests of the powerful and wealthy.
If this honorable, rebellious Companion was to select an appropriate standard for himself and his
movement, he would not find a better one than an iron, a glowing, hot, and flaming iron. Thus he turned
the following words into his chant and earnest appeal, repeating them every time and every place he
went. People repeated them after him as if they were an anthem:
Announce to those who hoard up gold and silver, the warning of branding irons with which their
foreheads and bodies will be branded in the hereafter.
He never ascended a mountain or descended a valley or entered a city or faced a ruler without
repeating the same words, so much so that people would always welcome him when he approached them
by repeating "Announce to those who hoard up gold and silver, the warning of branding irons."
This statement turned into "signature time" for his message to which he devoted his life. That was
because he saw wealth being accumulated and monopolized for power and being turned into a means of
supremacy and abuse. He saw an overwhelming passion for life which was about to erase all beauty,
piety, devotion, and sincerity built up during the previous years of the great mission of the Messenger of
Allah.
When he began his attack, he started with the most authoritative and horrible stronghold: there in
Syria, where Mu`aawiyah Ibn Abi Sufyaan was ruling one of the most fertile lands in the world of Islam,
granting and distributing money carelessly, thereby bestowing undeserved privileges upon people of
power and rank in order to guarantee his future, a future he aspired to promote. There in Syria, the
country of overwhelming palaces, country estates and fortunes which tempted the remnants of the
carriers of the Islamic message, he began his attack. Abu Dhar wanted to confront the center of danger
before it ruined and destroyed all Muslims.