Masterpieces of Rhetoric Methood (nahj Al-balagha)

A Group of His Letters, Sermons, Pledges and Advices

The worship of free men

His wonderful speech on the meaning of worship

A group of people worshipped Allah out of desire for reward surely, that is the worship of traders! Another group worshipped Allah out of fear, that is the worship of slaves! Still another group worshipped Allah out of gratefulness, this is the worship of free men!

O’ People A sermon in Al-Maddinah

Monopolizing is the medium of toil; miserliness is an incen-tive to stumbling into sins; greediness gathers the whole of evil vices. O’ people, there is no treasure more useful than knowledge no honour higher than tolerance, no evil worse than falsehood, and no absent closer than death!

O’ people, he who sees his own defects abstains from looking into other’s defects; he who draws out the sword of aggression is killed with it; he who digs a well falls in it; he who forgets his slips enlarges other’s slips; he who gets astonished with his view strays; he who dispenses his mind lapsed, and he who prides on people is humiliated.

Through change of circumstances the mettle of men is known. Days reveal hidden secrets. It is enough for your own refinement that you abstain from what you dislike of others’ he who scrutinized opinions understands the pitfalls. Love is a gained kinship your brother owes you a right like you owe him; no one gets anything unless he loses something else; there is a foodstuff for every living creature; there is an eater for every grain, and you are the foodstuff of death.

O’ people, beware of cheating, since it is of the charac-teristics of ignoble people. Purifying the act is more hard than the act. Purifying the intention of perversion it is more hard to the doers than long jihad (struggle). How impossible! Had it not been for piety I would have been the most cunning of all Arabs.

You have to stick to the word of right in time of conten-tedness and anger; you have to stick to justice with friend and enemy; you have to stick to contentedness in hardship and well-being. Whoever leaves desire is free. Man’s vanity of himself is a proof of his weak mind. The worst provision for the Day of Judgement is aggression on Allah’s slaves.

O’ Abu Dharr

Imam speech to the great companion of the prophet Abu Dharr Al-Ghifari when the third Caliph exiled him to Al-Rabadhah; it is a deserted place close to Medina, and he sent someone calling to people: “Know that no one should speak to Abu Dharr nor see him off”! people avoided him then except Ibn Abi Talib, his brother Aqeel, his sons Al-Hassan and Al-Hussain and Ammar:

O’ Abu Dharr! You felt angry for the sake of Allah therefore have hope in His reward for the sake of whom you felt angry. The people have feared you for their present life and you feared them for your religion. Then leave to them that for which they have feared you and ran away with what you have feared them for.

How needy are they for what you have deprived them of and how needless you are to what they are deprived you of. Even if these skies and earth were closed to someone then he feared Allah, then Allah would open an exit for him. Don’t be amused but at rightfulness and don’t feel an aversion but for wrong-fulness. If you had accepted their worldly earnings they would have loved you and if you had gnawed at it they would have felt secure of you.

Whenever someone feels secure

In a letter to Salman Al-Farisi before Imam’s Caliphate

And be the most amused by it – this world – the most catious of it, for its admirer whenever he is assured of happiness it drives it away to an adversity.

O’ prophet of Allah, peace be upon you

In a speech said on the occasion of the burial of the Supreme Lady Fatimah O’ prophet of Allah, greeting to you from me and from your daughter who is residenet in your neighbourhood and who has hastened to succeed you. O’ prophet of Allah, my patience about your purified daughter has been exhausted, and my power of endurance has weakened, except that I have ground for conso-lation in having endured the great hardship and heart-rending event of your separation. As to my grief it is eternal, and as to my night I am sleepless till Allah chooses for me the abode in which you are now residing.