ʿIlm al-Kalām Archive · Quranic Verses · Q 4:165
Messengers bearing good news and warning — so that humanity may have no argument against God after the messengers. And God is ever Mighty, Wise.
The verse's purpose-clause — li-allā yakūna li-al-nās ʿalā Allāh ḥujja baʿda al-rusul — is a statement about divine justice. God sends messengers so that no human being can raise a valid objection (ḥujja) against God at the Last Day by claiming: "I was never shown the way." Q 17:15 states the same principle in the negative: wa-mā kunnā muʿadhdhibīna ḥattā nabʿatha rasūlā — "We do not punish until We have sent a messenger." The sending of messengers is therefore not merely an act of divine mercy — it is a condition of divine justice: punishment without prior establishment of ḥujja would be unjust, and God is ʿazīzun ḥakīm — His power is exercised with wisdom and justice.
The decisive implication: if the purpose of messengers is to establish ḥujja so that no one can object, then the function of ḥujja-establishment must be permanent — there cannot be a period in which the ḥujja is absent and human beings are left without the means of guidance, only to be held accountable later. Al-Kāfī records Imam al-Ṣādiq (ع): law khalat al-arḍ min ḥujja yawman wāḥidan lāsākhat bi-ahlihā — "if the earth were empty of a ḥujja for a single day it would swallow its inhabitants." The permanence of the ḥujja is not optional — it is the structural implication of Q 4:165's own stated purpose.
Al-Kāfī, Kitāb al-Ḥujja — Imam al-Riḍā (ع)
Shaykh al-Mufīd's luṭf principle in Awāʾil al-Maqālāt: luṭf (divine facilitation) is what brings the responsible agent closer to obedience and further from disobedience without removing free choice. God is obligated by His own wisdom and justice to provide luṭf — and the highest form of luṭf is the presence of a maʿṣūm (infallible) Imam who is the living embodiment of divine guidance. ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī systematised this in Kashf al-Murād: the Imam is necessary by the luṭf principle derived from Q 4:165's own stated purpose. Without the Imam, the condition "so that humanity may have no ḥujja against God" cannot be fulfilled in the post-prophetic era.
Eschatological fulfilment — Imam al-Mahdī, ʿĪsā (ع), and all communities: The ultimate universal establishment of ḥujja occurs at the eschaton. Al-Kāfī (Imam al-Bāqir): Imam al-Mahdī (ع) will produce the original Torah from Antioch and judge Jews by it, and judge Christians by the original Gospel — each community by its own revealed scripture. Q 4:159 confirms: wa-in min ahl al-kitāb illā la-yuʾminanna bihi qabla mawtihi — all People of the Book will believe in ʿĪsā (ع) before his second death, i.e., when he returns they will see him as he truly is. Biḥār al-Anwār (multiple chains): when ʿĪsā (ع) descends, Imam al-Mahdī (ع) leads the prayer — ʿĪsā (ع) prays behind the Imam. This is the supreme eschatological demonstration: ʿĪsā (ع) is a prophet of God, but in the post-prophetic order the walāya of the Imam encompasses even prophethood. No community — Jewish, Christian, or Muslim — can claim after this moment that the ḥujja was not established before them. Q 4:165's purpose is fulfilled completely and universally at the Return.
Three Quranic verses together constitute the system by which Q 4:165's permanent ḥujja condition is maintained through the age of Ghayba. Q 4:165 establishes the requirement: ḥujja must be present in every age. Q 9:119 (kūnū maʿa al-ṣādiqīn — permanent imperative) establishes that the believer must be continuously aligned with the living ṣādiq — which presupposes the ṣādiq's continuous existence. Q 5:35 (wa-btaghū ilayhi al-wasīla) provides the practical instruction for Ghayba: seek the means of approach to God — the silsila chain, whether juristic or spiritual, that connects the seeker to the hidden Imam.
The tawqīʿ of Imam al-Mahdī (ع) during the Minor Occultation provides the Imam's own instruction for Ghayba: wa-ammā al-ḥawādith al-wāqiʿa fa-rjiʿū fīhā ilā ruwāt ḥadīthinā — "For arising events, refer to the narrators of our hadith." The authorised jurists and spiritual masters of the silsila serve as the wasīla through which the ḥujja reaches the seeker in the period of occultation. The sun is behind clouds; its light still reaches creation.
Convergence — The Permanent Ḥujja and Its Eschatological Completion
Al-Kāfī's permanent ḥujja doctrine and Ibn ʿArabī's Quṭb doctrine are the same ontological claim: the world requires a living axis of divine governance in every moment. Ḥaydar Āmulī's synthesis names this reality the same thing in three vocabularies — Imam (Imami), Quṭb (Akbarian), Ṣādiq (Q 9:119). The Ghayba is not an exception to Q 4:165 — it is the most demanding test of it: the ḥujja is present but hidden, accessible through authorised chains. The eschatological Return of Imam al-Mahdī (ع) — leading ʿĪsā (ع) in prayer, judging all peoples by their own scriptures — is the moment when Q 4:165's purpose reaches its most complete and universal fulfilment: no human being, of any tradition, before any divine tribunal, will be able to say the ḥujja was not established before him.
Propositions and Cross-References