Nahjul Balagha Part 1, The Sermons

Sermon 228: You drew out my hand towards you for allegiance….

About allegiance to Amir al-mu'minin for the Caliphate (A similar sermon in somewhat different version has already appeared earlier)

You drew out my hand towards you for allegiance but I held it back and you stretched it but I contracted it. Then you crowed over me as the thirsty camels crowd on the watering cisterns on their being taken there, so much so that shoes were torn, shoulder-cloths fell away and the weak got trampled, and the happiness of people on their allegiance to me was so manifested that small children felt joyful, the old staggered (up to me) for it, the sick too reached for it helter skelter and young girls ran for it without veils.

Alternative Sources for Sermon 228

(1) Al-Mufid, al-'Irshad, 142;

(2) al-Mufid, al-Jamal, 128, from (3);

(3) al-Waqidi, al-Jamal;

(4) al-Thaqafi, al-Gharat, I, 310;

(5) Ibn Tawus, Kashf, 173;

(6) Ibn Qutaybah, al-'Imamah, I, 154;

(7) al-Tabari, Ta'rikh, V, 28;

(8) Ibn `Abd Rabbih, al-`Iqd, II, 165;

(9) al-Kulayni, al-Rasa'il;

(10) al-Tabari, al-Mustarshid, 95.