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THE
PROPHET AS UNIVERSAL EDUCATOR
To
better understand the Prophet’s role as educator, let us
first study the following verse:
It
is He who has raised up from amongst the unlettered a
Messenger of their own, to recite His signs to them and
to purify them, and to teach them the Book and the
Wisdom, though before that they were in manifest error.
(al-Jumu‘a, 62.2)
The
verse begins with ‘He’. This manner of indirect address is
appropriate because the people did not know God. They were
ignorant and savage. There was no ‘He’ in their mental
world referred to God. So, God first emphasizes the darkness
of their character and how far removed they were from being
able to receive a direct address from Him.
Then,
God calls them unlettered. They were not literate, had no
knowledge about God and the Messenger. God, by His infinite
Power, sent this petty community the one with greatest
will-power, with loftiest spirit and deepest heart and,
through him, instructed them as geniuses who would go on to
govern much of humanity. Moreover, although God attaches great
importance to writing and reading, they were unaware of it.
The
word amongst shows that the Messenger was one of them in the
sense of being unlettered. Yet, the Messenger was not a man of
the Age of Ignorance. It was necessary for him to be
unletttered, because God would teach him what he needed to
know. He would set him apart from them, educate him and make
him a teacher for the unlettered peoples.
... to
recite to them His signs, to purify them, points out that he
instructs them in the meanings of the Book and the creation
gradually, explains to them, and wants to make them complete
human beings by educating and guiding them to intellectual and
spiritual perfection. He guides them to higher ranks by
instructing them through the Book and educating their souls.
...
though before that they were in manifest error reveals that
God would purify and educate them even though they were
astray. He did all of this through an unlettered Messenger.
God
teaches the Book, that is, the Glorious Qur’an. This Book
will reach the brilliant generations of the future, as it did
in the past. All of the so-called original ideas will
disappear one by one, like candles blown out, and there will
be only one ‘sun’ left. It will never set. Its flag will
be the only one waving on the horizon, and every generation to
come one after the other will rush to it, breaking the chains
around their necks. The signs have already appeared. Consider
Russia and China. If you had heard the news about them ten
years ago, you would have supposed that it was a dream. Look,
how terrifying despotic states are collapsing one by one! And
the Qur’an appears like an ember among their ashes. A great
world expressing Oneness of God coming to life again. Despite
the despotism, tyranny, cruelty and aggression against it, the
Islamic spirit, with its freshness allures hearts from all
over the world.
Another
meaning of the verse is that God taught the Book to His noble
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, so that he could
guide his people to higher spiritual ranks, in the brilliant
climate of this Book. He would show them how to become
perfect, and he would make them rise spiritually so that their
souls and hearts could follow his body and soul in his
ascension. Yet his nation had been in deep corruption before.
If God wills, He may turn coal into diamond, and turn the
earth golden, and he did. The Golden Generation of the White
Age is still shining. This is by God’s Will. He did it
through His Messenger, Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings. The one who led humanity to spiritual and
intellectual perfection is the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be
peace and blessings, who is himself at the summit of
perfection.
After
him, humanity saw his standard carried everywhere by men who
had been raised on the wings of sainthood, purification, fear
of God and the desire to be close to Him. Wherever they went,
they walked in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad. Others
will do so in the future.
The
education of the Messenger was not just the purification of
the evil-commanding self, not just an inward discipline. He
came with a universal education system, presented a Message
that would raise all hearts, spirits, minds and souls to
realize their ideal forms. This is affirmed by the Qur’an.
He respected reason, inspired it and led it to the highest
under the intellect of Revelation. He did not neglect the
human spirit but encouraged it to the highest attainment,
higher by far than those of so-called spiritual masters. He
led the spirit to the realms it yearned for, the ‘green
slopes’ of heaven-like realms. His teaching touched the
human faculties and senses with an inspiration that raised
them to the heights where even imagination follows limping,
which opened the way to progress in every field, economic,
social, administrative, military, political and scientific,
for his followers and made of them world-renowned
administrators, economists, statesmen, military commanders,
scholars and scientists. The Messenger came with a universal
call which embraced economics, finance, public administration,
health and education, justice, the law of states and nations,
and knowledge. If there had been any lack in his teaching of
mankind, the aim of his Prophethood would not have been
realized so fully. He said: Each of the Prophets before me
built some part of this marvelous building, but there was a
gap which needed to be closed. Every person passing by would
say: ‘I wonder when this building will be completed.’ The
one who completes it is me. After me, there is no longer any
defect in the structure.1
The Qur’an,
by affirming him, says:
This
day I have completed your religion for you. (al-Ma’ida,
5.3)
In
short, the Prophet was one who reformed, completed and
perfected the ways of life that had been lacking or deficient
or deviated from the Will of God.
The
virtues of an educator consist in the following:
·
To give due importance to all aspects of a human being,
mind, spirit and self, and to raise each to its proper
perfection.
The Qur’an
mentions the evil-commanding self which drags a man, like a
beast with a rope around its neck, everywhere it wants, and
goads him continually to obey the desires of his body whereas,
by the disposition God gave him, he could be elevated in
feeling, thought and spirit.
The Qur’an
quotes the Prophet Joseph, upon him be peace, as saying:
Surely
the self commands evil, unless my Lord has mercy. (Yusuf,
12.53)
Commanding
evil is inherent in the self’s nature. However, through
worship and discipline, the self can be raised to higher
ranks. It rises to a position where it accuses itself for its
evils and shortcomings (al-Qiyama, 75.2), and then
still higher, where God addresses it, O self at peace!
Return unto your Lord, well-pleased, well-pleasing (al-Fajr,
89.27-8).
Higher
than the self at peace (at rest and contented) is the self
perfectly purified. Those who have been able to rise to this
degree of attainment are the nearest to God. When you look at
them, you remember God; they are like polished mirrors in
which all the attributes of God are reflected. It is through
the training by the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings, that almost all of his Companions reached this
degree of moral and spiritual perfection and they have been
followed by hundreds of thousands of others to this day.
An
education system is judged by its universality, its
comprehensiveness, and the quality of its students. The
students of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings, were ready to convey his Message throughout the
world. Since this Message is universal, including all times
and peoples, regardless of color, temperament, age and
differences of intellectual level, it received a warm welcome
in a very short period in a vast area stretching from Morocco
and Spain to the Philippines, from the Russian steppes to the
heart of Africa, and has remained welcome there. The
principles of the education system taught by the Prophet
Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, still preserve
their validity. After so many upheavals, changes, and social,
economic, intellectual and scientific and technological
revolutions, his system is the most unique and original, so
much so that it is the hope of the future of mankind.
· An
education system is judged by the capacity it has to change
its students. You know that even a little bad habit like
cigarette smoking among a small community can be permanently
removed only with great effort. To those who refuse to accept
the Prophethood of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings,
we present as a challenge, not the Arabian peninsula of
fourteen centuries ago, but any part of the ‘civilized’
world. Let them go there with hundreds of philosophers,
sociologists, psychologists and pedagogues, and strive for a
hundred years. I wonder whether they would be able to achieve
in that period a hundredth part of what the Prophet achieved
in twenty-three years.
When
the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, was
entrusted with communicating the Divine Message, the Arabian
peninsula, cut off from the neighboring countries by vast
deserts, was one of the most backward areas of the world,
culturally and intellectually. In addition, people were
habituated to the worst moral corruption. Specifically the
Hijaz, where the Prophet was born, had not experienced any
social evolution or attained any share of intellectual
development worthy of mention. With minds saturated with
superstitions, customs barbarous and ferocious, moral
standards very degraded, people lived in savagery. They drank
wine and gambled, and illicit sexual relations were
widespread. Prostitutes would, by way of advertising their
trade, hang a flag on the doors of their houses.2
It was
a country without law and a government. Might was right, as in
many parts of the world today, and looting, arson, and murder
of the innocent and weak were commonplace. Any trivial
incident could provoke inter-tribal feuding which sometimes
developed into country-wide wars.
The
Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, appeared
amongst such a tribe. With the Message he brought and his way
of preaching it, he eradicated the evils and savage customs
and immoral qualities to which the people had been so
fanatically attached, and equipped and adorned the wild and
unyielding peoples of that large peninsula with all the
praiseworthy virtues, and made them teachers of all the world.
It was not an outward domination. Rather, he conquered and
subjugated the people’s minds, spirits, hearts, and souls.
He became the beloved of hearts, the teacher of minds, the
trainer of souls, and the ruler of spirits. In place of the
evil qualities he eradicated, he implanted and inculcated in
the people’s hearts exalted qualities in such a way that
those qualities became part of their permanent character.
The
Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, not only
changed the people of his age. His Message has continued to
spread and to change people radically ever since that age. It
was not only quickly accepted by Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Persia,
Egypt, Northern Africa and Spain at its first outburst, but,
with the exception of Spain, where the most brilliant
civilization of the time flourished, it has never lost its
vantage ground; it has been spreading ever since it came into
being. A nineteenth-century Western writer notes his
impressions of the influence of Islamic moral values on black
Africans:
As to
the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Negro tribe, can
there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt?
Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with
its attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice
becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevation is
most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their
history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced
by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes
a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule, becomes a
comparatively rare exception. Chastity is looked upon as one
of the highest, and becomes, in fact, one of the commoner
virtues. It is idleness that henceforward degrades, and
industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are
henceforward measured by a written code instead of the
arbitrary caprice of a chieftain - a step, as everyone will
admit - of vast importance in the progress of a tribe. The
mosque gives an idea of architecture at all events higher than
any the Negro has yet had. A thirst for literature is created
and that for works of science and philosophy as well as for
commentaries on the Qur’an.3
Individual
examples
In the
school of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, many
world-renowned individuals have been brought up. Certainly, we
come across numerous great men during history in other schools
of education as well. God has honored mankind with great
heroes, eminent statesmen, invincible commanders, inspired
saints and great scientists. However, most of them have not
been able to make any deep impression on more than one or two
aspects of human life. They have tended to concentrate on one
or two aspects of life and overlooked the other aspects. But
since Islam is a Divine way leading man through all fields of
life, a Divine system encompassing all aspects of life, since
it is, in the words of Muhammad Asad, a Jewish convert to
Islam, ‘like a perfect work of architecture all of whose
parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support
each other, nothing lacking, with the result of an absolute
balance and solid composure’4, those who have
been brought up in the school of Muhammad, upon him be peace
and blessings, have usually been able to combine in themselves
the spiritual with the rational or intellectual and material,
the worldly with the other-worldly, the ideal with the real,
and the scientific with the ‘revealed’.
Islam,
having at its very outset put an end to tribal conflicts and
condemned discrimination on the basis of color and race to the
extent of putting the chiefs of the Quraysh under the command
of an emancipated black slave, innumerable scholars and
scientists, commanders and saints have been raised among
conquered peoples. Among them was a Tariq - Tariq ibn Ziyad -
an emancipated Berber slave, who conquered Spain. He was a
victorious commander. However, more than the day when he
defeated the Spanish army of ninety thousand soldiers with a
handful of valiants, he was truly victorious when he put his
feet on the treasury of the conquered Spanish king and said to
himself: ‘Tariq! You were a chained slave, then God freed
you and you became a commander. Now you are the conqueror of
Spain. Do not ever forget that tomorrow you will stand in the
presence of God.’ He did not touch anything of the treasury.
Uqba
ibn Nafi‘ was another great commander. He conquered northern
Africa and reached the Meditarrenean coast. There he stood and
uttered: ‘O God! If this sea of darkness did not appear
before me, I would convey Your Name, which is the source of
light, to overseas lands as far as the remotest corners of the
world.’5
Prior
to his conversion, ‘Adbullah ibn Mas‘ud used to take care
of the sheep of ‘Uqba ibn Abi Mu‘ayt. He was a weak,
little man, to whom no one paid respect. He became a Muslim
and one of the most senior Companions of the Prophet, upon him
be peace and blessings. During his caliphate, ‘Umar sent him
to Kufa6 as a teacher. In the scholarly climate Ibn
Mas‘ud formed in Kufa, the greatest figures of Islamic
jurisprudence were raised. Among them are Alqama, Ibrahim al-Nakha’i,
Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman, Sufyan al-Thawri and especially Imam
Abu Hanifa, the founder of the biggest school of Islamic law.
Ikrima
was the son of Abu Jahl, the harsh and inflexible leader of
the unbelieving party of the Quraysh. After many years of
opposition to the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, he
became a Muslim following the conquest of Makka. Islam changed
him so radically that he was martyred three years later at the
Battle of Yarmuk. His son, Amir, was also martyred together
with him.
Hansa
was among the leading woman poets in the Age of Ignorance.
Becoming a Muslim, she gave up writing poems. She used to
acknowledge: ‘While we have the Qur’an, I cannot write
poems.’ She lost her four sons at the Battle of Qadisiya.
This great woman, who had once recited poems of lament over
the death of her brother in the Age of Ignorance, uttered no
words of objection and, instead, murmured in a deep submission
to God: ‘O God! All praise be to You. You have bestowed on
me while alive the possibility of offering you as gifts my
four sons that you gave me.’7
The
most just statesmen history has known have also been brought
up in the school of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace
and blessings. Besides Abu Bakr, ‘Uthman, ‘Ali and many
others who succeeded them, ‘Umar, the second Caliph, has
been appreciated in almost every age as one of the most just
and greatest statesmen ever to have lived. He used to say: ‘If
a sheep falls from a bridge even on the river Tigris and dies,
God will call me to account for it on the Day of Judgement.’8
When you compare ‘Umar before his conversion and ‘Umar
after he became a Muslim, you will easily see the sharp
contrast between the two and understand how radically Islam
changes people.
Teaching
laws of life
Due to
the misconceptions and secular tendencies arising especially
in the West in recent centuries, most people in the world tend
to restrict religion to mean ‘blind faith’ and/or
meaningless acts of worship, or a consolation for the pains of
life. Contrary to such notions which have developed in
Christendom partly because of the historical mistakes and
shortcomings of Christianity and partly because of the
tendencies of secularized, worldly people, some movements in
Muslim countries have, unfortunately, also reduced ‘religion’
- in this case - to an ideology, to a social, economic and
political system. Whereas, Islam, standing between these two
extremes, addresses itself to all of the faculties and senses
of man, including his mind, heart and feelings, and
encompasses all aspects of life. That is why the Prophet
Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, gave due importance
to learning, trading, agriculture, action and thought, and
encouraged his people to do perfectly whatever they would do
and condemned inaction and begging.
For
example, he said: God loves a believing, skilful servant.9
A
believer should do in the best way whatever he does. For the
Qur’an declares:
Say:
‘Work; and God will surely see your work, and the
Messenger and the believers’. (al-Tawba, 9.105)
Whatever
one does in the world will be exhibited on the Day of
Judgment. So a believer cannot work carelessly and do
something in a manner of wishing to get rid of it.
God’s
Messenger declares: When you do something, God likes you to
do it perfectly.10
Islam
encourages man to work and regards it as an act of worship
that one works to earn one’s living and support one’s
family in lawful ways. Unlike Christianity, it does not
idealize (nor even advise) life as a hermit. However, it
forbids dissipation and luxury. Its aim is to ensure man’s
prosperity in both worlds, and therefore it warns man against
living a self-indulgent life and neglecting his religious
duties. For example, in one of his concise sayings, which
summarizes the essentials of a happy economic and social life
and the prosperity in both this world and the next, God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, declares:
When
you let yourselves go into speculative transactions and
are occupied with animal-breeding only and content with
agriculture and abandon striving in the way of God to
preach His religion, God will subject you to such a
humiliation that He will not remove it from you until
you return to your religion.11
This
hadith is extraordinarily apt in describing the pitiable
condition of Muslims over the last few centuries. Speculative
transactions signify the dying of a healthy economic life and
the resort to unlawful, self-abandoned ways of earning one’s
living. Contentment with agriculture and animal breeding is
the sign of laziness and abandoning scientific investigations,
whereas the Qur’an explicitly states that God has created
man as His vicegerent on the earth and entrusted him with
knowledge of the names of things. This means that by
discovering Divine laws of nature and reflecting on natural
phenomena, man should establish sciences and exploit natural
resources. However, while doing this, he should aim at gaining
God’s good pleasure and practicing His religion. In many
verses such as Say: ‘Are they equal-those who know and those
who know that?’ (al-Zumar, 39.9), the Qur’an
emphasizes the importance of knowledge and learning, and warns
that among His servants, only those who have knowledge truly
fear God (al-Fatir, 35.28), meaning that true piety and
worship can be possible through knowledge. Confinement of
knowledge to ‘religious’ sciences devoid of reflection and
investigation, must inevitably result, as indeed it did, in
contentment with animal breeding and agriculture, and in
idleness and neglect of striving in the way of God, and
ultimately in misery, poverty and humiliation. God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, drew attention to
this important fact in some other sayings of his also. For
example, he said: One hour of reflection and contemplation is
better than one year of (supererogatory) religious worship.12
He also said: A powerful believer is better and more lovable
to God than a weak one.13 Being powerful requires
both spiritual and physical health and having scientific and
technical competence. Restricting the meaning of ‘being
powerful’ to mere physical strength shows lack of
understanding of the basis of power.
Being a
good Muslim is possible through being a good student in the
school of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings.
Further
remarks on the education system of God’s Messenger
Ja’far
ibn Abi Talib, the cousin of the Prophet, who emigrated to
Abyssinia in the face of the unbearable persecutions of the
Quraysh polytheists, once told the Negus, the then ruler of
Abyssinia:
O
king! We used to drink blood, eat of carrion, commit
fornication, steal, kill one another and plunder. The
powerful used to oppress the weak. We used to do many
other things shameful and despicable.14
The
Prophet Muhammad came and set the best example for them in
belief, worship, and good conduct, and, in short, in all
aspects of life. They had used to bury their daughters alive;
having a daughter was a cause of shame for them. When the
Prophet came with the Divine Message, women enjoyed their
rights fully. Once a young girl came to God’s Messenger and
complained: ‘O Messenger of God! My father would force me to
marry the son of my uncle, but I am unwilling to.’ The
Messenger sent for her father and warned him: You cannot force
your daughter to marry one whom she does not want. ‘I won’t
do that’, the man replied. The girl stood up and explained:
O
Messenger of God! I did not intend to oppose my father.
I came here only to find out whether Islam allows a
father to marry his daughter to somebody she does not
want.15
God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, warned his
Companions not to beg. However poor and needy, the Companions
did not beg from anybody. They were so sensitive in this
matter that they even refrained from asking help. If, for
example, one of them dropped his whip while on a mount, he
would not request anybody to pick it up and pass it to him;
rather, he got off and picked it up himself.16
Prior
to Islam, people worshipped idols and did not pay due respect
to their parents. God’s Messenger came with the Divine
Message, which commanded them: Your Lord has decreed you shall
not worship any but Him, and to be good to parents (al-Isra’,
17.23). This Divine decree changed them so radically that they
began asking the Messenger whether it would deserve punishment
if they were not able to return the looks of their parents
with a smile. The Qur’an ordered them not to approach the
orphan’s property (al-Isra’, 17.34) and forbade
theft, and they were so sensitive in respecting others’
rights that history does not record more than one or two
thefts in that blessed period of the Prophet’s rule.
Murder
was extremely widespread in the Age of Ignorance. However,
when the Prophet came with the prohibition, Slay not the soul
God has forbidden (al-Isra’, 17.33), it was all but
eradicated.
God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, also forbade
fornication. This was enough for the end of all kinds of
illicit intercourse. However, we do encounter a single
incident of fornication during the blessed period of the
Prophet’s rule, upon him be peace and blessings.
One day
a man, pale and exhausted, came to God’s Messenger and
asked: ‘O Messenger of God! Cleanse me!’ The Messenger
turned his face from him, but the man insisted: ‘O Messenger
of God! Cleanse me!’ This was repeated four times. At last,
the Messenger asked: Of what sin shall I cleanse you? ‘Of
fornication’, the man replied. The sin of illicit
intercourse weighed on his conscience so heavily that he
desired to be punished.
The
Messenger asked those present: Does this man suffer from
insanity?
-
No, he is sound, they replied.
-
See, if he is intoxicated!
They
examined him. He was sober. In the face of his insistent
confession, God’s Messenger had to order the execution of
the punishment on the man. After it, he sat and wept.
A few
days later, a woman appealed to God’s Messenger to cleanse
her of her sin. She was the man’s partner. Many times God’s
Messenger turned away from her and sent her back. In utmost
remorse, the woman insisted on being punished. The Messenger
sent her back once more, saying: You may be pregnant. Go and
give birth to your child. The woman went and came back again
after she had given birth. The Messenger excused her: Go back;
your child needs feeding. After the child had been weaned, the
woman came again. When someone reproved the woman during the
execution of her punishment, the Prophet, upon him be peace
and blessings, frowned at him and said: By God, this woman
repented of her sin so much that were her repentance to be
shared out among the whole of the people of Madina, it would
suffice for their forgiveness.17
The
Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, established
such a magnificent system and formed such an excellent
community that neither Plato nor Thomas Moore nor Campanella
nor any other utopian has been able to imagine its equal.
Among thousands of other examples, the following - the last we
have space to give in this book - illustrates this fact.
Abu
Hurayra, one of the poorest of the Companions, once came to
God’s Messenger. He had not eaten anything for some days.
Abu Talha, one of the Helpers, took him home to give food.
Nevertheless, there was nothing at home save some soup which
Abu Talha’s wife had made for her children. She consulted
with her husband and they decided: They would make their
children sleep without eating anything. The soup was too
little to make all of them full so only the guest should have
it. They sat at the table and it was just when they began
eating that Umm Sulaym, Abu Talha’s wife, knocked the candle
as if by mistake. In darkness, they acted as if they ate but
they did not. The guest ate the soup and was satisfied.
It was
dawn when they stood for prayer after God’s Messenger in the
mosque. At the end of the prayer, the Messenger turned to them
and asked: ‘What did you do last night, that this verse
was revealed in praise of you: “They prefer others above
themselves, even though poverty be their portion” (al-Hashr,
59.9)?’18
1. Bukhari,
Manaqib, 18; Muslim, Fada’il, 20-23.
2. Bukhari, Nikah, 36; Abu Dawud, Talaq, 33.
3. Waitz quoted by B. Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism,
42-3.
4. Islam at
the Crossroads, 5.
5. Ibn al-Athir, el-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 4.106.
6. Kufa was a famous city in the early history of Islam,
situated on the west branch of the river Euphrates, to the
south of the ruins of Babel, in southern Iraq.
7. Ibn al-Athir, Usd al-Ghaba,
7.88-90; Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba, 4.287.
8. Tabari, Tarikh, 5.195; Ibn Sa‘d, Tabaqat,
3.305; Abu Nu‘aym, Hilya, 1.53.
9. Munavi, Fayd al-Qadir, 2.290.
10. Muttaqi al-Hindi, Kanz al-‘Ummal, 3.907.
11. Abu Dawud, Buyu‘, 54; I. Hanbal, Musnad, 2.84.
12. ‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa’, 1.370.
13. Muslim, Qadar, 34; Ibn Maja, Muqaddima, 10; I. Hanbal,
3.366.
14. Bukhari, Wasa’ya’, 9.
15. Nasa’i, Nikah, 36.
16. Muslim, Zakat, 108; Ibn Maja, Jihad, 41.
17. Muslim, Hudud, 22-3.
18. Bukhari, Tafsir, 6; Muslim, Ashriba, 172.
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