If you say: We see that the affairs of the irreligious or of members of false religions are orderly and just.

The Answer: Such order, justice, and virtues are obtained through the warnings and guidance of the religious, since the latter's principles have been established by the prophets. That is to say, the prophets laid down the principles and matters; they practised the principles and virtues, and the rest followed what they did. Other systems and attainments are temporary. If they are upright and straight in one respect, in many respects they are misshapen and crooked. That is, no matter how orderly they are superficially, materially, and in regard to livelihood, they are corrupt and impaired morally, spiritually, and in meaning.

Brother! It is the turn of the third aspect. Think about it! It is like this: both extremes in morality, that is, excess and negligence, corrupt man's innate capabilities, and such corruption results in futility. Futility is contrary to the divine wisdom which governs in the world and is self-evident in the benefits and purposes followed in even the smallest and least important things in the universe.

Misapprehension and Note

The conceptions of the irreligious and their rejection of the divine Shari'a concerning the matters they call "knowledge of the law," which they instil by continually bruiting the harms of every sort of wrong, and "conforming to the law," which is achieved by informing public opinion, are false delusions. For the world has grown old. And the premises of such a thing are not clear. On the contrary, evils progress together with good things and assume a more fearsome and deceptive form. Indeed, just as the laws of wisdom are not unrelated to the principles of government, so too they have intense need for the laws of the Shari'a and virtue. The above-mentioned mistaken moral training is insufficient to preserve the mean of the three powers — wisdom, chastity, and courage. In consequence, of necessity man is in need of a prophet who will uphold the balance of divine justice, that it might be thoroughly effective on his conscience and disposition.