Asbag bin Nabata says: Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, said: “...No more will be left of you than kohl on the eye or salt in food. And I shall give you an example: A man had a quantity of wheat. He cleans it out and puts it indoors, but he returns after a long time he sees it is full of weevils. He again sieves and cleans it and brings it indoors. But when he returns after a long time it is again full of weevils. He cleans it again and repeats the operation. EVENTUALLY HE IS LEFT WITH A VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF HEALTHY WHEAT THE WEEVILS HAVE NOT HARMED. That is how you are. ONLY A VERY SMALL GROUP OF YOU WILL REMAIN UNTOUCHED BY CORRUPTION.” (Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Said also relates the same hadith.) ( Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim Nomani, al-Ghaybah al-Nomani , p. 246) |
The hadith tells us the hypocrites who emerge from the community of Hazrat Mahdi (as) resemble “loathsome weevils infesting wheat.” The community of Hazrat Mahdi (as) is compared to “a blessing that promised for the future that will be opened out and sowed like wheat, and will grow and flourish, and will bring abundance.” Hypocrites are described as “vile and loathsome entities like weevils that try to damage the wheat from the inside.”The hadith describes how the wheat will be cleaned but will again be infested by weevils, and that its owner will keep repeating the process until no weevils are left. In the same way that the parasitic and loathsome weevils are removed from the wheat like filth, so the people of Hazrat Mahdi (as) will eventually be rid of the hypocrites and work as an immaculate community.
