--- title: "The Goal of Prophethood" event: "The Lantern of the Path" session_number: 9 published_at: "2025-01-22" canonical_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-goal-of-prophethood" event_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path" type: "event-session" scripture_reference: "Quran, Surah Ibrahim (Abraham), Chapter 14, Verse 1" --- # The Goal of Prophethood *Session 9 of [The Lantern of the Path](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path) — 22 January 2025* Prophethood, Part 4 Before Islam, the people around him would not have grieved if an earthquake had swallowed him whole — and he became one of the most revered men in Islamic history. That was Abu Dhar: a rough desert nomad, by the evening's own description, with no interest in virtue and no patience for anyone who preached it. His transformation, this session argues, is the real miracle of prophethood — greater than any wall crumbling or tree bending on command. The prophets are compared to craftsmen polishing a mosaic: what looks like dull, undifferentiated dirt turns out, once worked, to contain colour and pattern that were there all along, simply buried. But the evening's sharper argument is about method, not outcome. The prophets, it insists, never tried to perfect people one at a time, the way a philosopher gathers students around a blackboard. Instead, they built the conditions for virtue to grow at scale: an environment, not a curriculum. A date palm can be kept alive in a London greenhouse with round-the-clock care, for the sake of one or two dates — or it can be planted somewhere it will simply flourish. Only one of those approaches changes a civilisation. Once you have built people a just society, what is it actually for? What the evening covers Abu Dhar's transformation. Why the evening treats this — not any miracle of nature — as the prophets' greatest sign. The mosaic under the dirt. The image used for the potential the evening says is buried in every human being. Why prophets built societies, not schools. The date-palm analogy for why an environment beats one-to-one moral coaching. The question materialism cannot answer. What a successful, just society is actually meant to be used for. ## Scripture > الٓرۚ كِتَٰبٌ أَنزَلۡنَٰهُ إِلَيۡكَ لِتُخۡرِجَ ٱلنَّاسَ مِنَ ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِ بِإِذۡنِ رَبِّهِمۡ إِلَىٰ صِرَٰطِ ٱلۡعَزِيزِ ٱلۡحَمِيدِ > > Alif, Lam, Ra. [This is] a Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that you might bring mankind out of darknesses into the light by permission of their Lord - to the path of the Exalted in Might, the Praiseworthy — *Quran, Surah Ibrahim (Abraham), Chapter 14, Verse 1* ## Programme - [Watch the full session](https://youtu.be/ZHfl9htfyO8) - [Sermon: The Goal of Prophethood](https://youtu.be/ZHfl9htfyO8) - [Nohe: Salutations to Imam Kadhem and Imam Jawad - Guardians of Kadhimiyyeh](https://youtu.be/dcHqRI6HBMI?si=408YGWINyyCBPSew) - [Ziyarah: Ziyarat Aal-e-Yasin](https://youtu.be/uSJNHMq3oYs?si=q7Sshrb6uRwXksSe) ## Other sessions in this event - [Session 69 — The Architecture of Guidance - Part 9 - The House Beside the Grave - Part 1 - Shaykh al-Ta'ifa](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-architecture-of-guidance-part-9-the-house-beside-the-grave-part-1-shaykh-al-) — 12 August 2026 - [Session 26 — Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba: A Life of Strategic Sacrifice](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/imam-hasan-al-mujtaba-a-life-of-strategic-sacrifice) — 20 May 2026 - [Session 3 — Keeping God's Limits](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/keeping-gods-limits) — 10 December 2025 - [Session 29 — Imam Sajjad: The Whispered Revolution](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/imam-sajjad-the-whispered-revolution) — 11 June 2025 - [Session 28 — Sayyedah Zaynab, Imam Sajjad and the Messengers of Karbala](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/sayyedah-zaynab-imam-sajjad-and-the-messengers-of-karbala) — 4 June 2025 - [Session 27 — Imam Husayn ibn Ali, The Master of the Martyrs](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/imam-husayn-ibn-ali-the-master-of-the-martyrs) — 28 May 2025 - [Session 25 — The Lady of Light and the Mother of the Imams, Sayyedah Fatimah al-Zahra](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lady-of-light-and-the-mother-of-the-imams-sayyedah-fatimah-al-zahra) — 14 May 2025 - [Session 24 — The Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-commander-of-the-faithful-imam-ali) — 7 May 2025 - [Session 23 — Prophet Muhammad](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/prophet-muhammad) — 30 April 2025 - [Session 22 — Introduction to Imamah, Part 2](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/introduction-to-imamah-part-2) — 23 April 2025 - [Session 21 — Introduction to Imamah, Part 1](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/introduction-to-imamah-part-1) — 16 April 2025 - [Session 20 — Migrating to the Wilayah of God](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/migrating-to-the-wilayah-of-god) — 9 April 2025 --- _Read this session on the web: https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-goal-of-prophethood_