Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

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Sermon
199

SERMON 199

Treason and treachery of
Muawiyah and the fate of those guilty of treason

By Allah, (1)
Muawiyah is not more cunning than I am, but he deceives and
commits evil deeds. Had I not been hateful of deceit I would have
been the most cunning of all men. But (the fact is that) every
deceit is a sin and every sin is disobedience (of Allah), and
every deceitful person will have a banner by which he will be
recognised on the Day of Judgement. By Allah, I cannot be made
forgetful by strategy, nor can I be overpowered by hardships.

(1).
People who are ignorant of religion and ethics free from the
shackles of religious law and unaware of the conception of
punishment and reward find no paucity of excuses and means for the
achievement of their objects. They can find ways of success at
every stage; but when the dictates of humanity, or Islam, or the
limitations imposed by ethics and religious law act as
impediments, the chances of devising and finding means become
narrow, and the possibility of action becomes restricted.
Muawiyah's influence and control was the result of these devices
and ways in following which he knew no impediment nor any obstacle
of what is lawful or unlawful, nor did fear of the Day of
Judgement prevent him from acting fearlessly. As al-Allamah
ar-Raghib al-Isfahani while taking account of his characters
writes:

"His aim always
was to achieve his object whether lawful or unlawful. He did not
care for religion nor did he ever think of divine chastisement.
Thus, in order to maintain his power he resorted to mis-statements
and concoctions, practised all sorts of deceits and contrivances.
When he saw that success was not possible without entangling Amir
al-mu'minin in war he roused Talhah and az-Zubayr against him.
When success could not be achieved by this means he instigated the
Syrians and brought about the civil war of Siffin. And when his
rebellious position had become known by the killing of Ammar, he
at once duped the people by saying that Ali was responsible for
killing him as he had brought him into the battlefield; and on
another occasion he interpreted the words 'rebellious party'
occurring in the saying of the Prophet to mean 'avenging party'
intending to prove that Ammar would be killed by the group that
would seek revenge of Uthman's blood, although the next portion
of this saying namely 'he will call them towards Paradise while
they will call him to Hell,' does not leave any scope for
interpretation. When there was no hope of victory even by these
cunning means, he contrived to raise the Qur'an on spears,
although in his view neither the Qur'an nor its commandments
carried any weight. If he had really aimed at a decision by the
Qur'an, he should have put this demand before the commencement of
the battle, and when it became known to him that the decision had
been secured by Amr ibn al-As by deceiving Abu Musa al-Ashari,
and that it did not have even a remote connection with the Qur'an,
he should not have accepted it and should have punished Amr ibn
al-As for this cunning, or at least should have warned and
rebuked him. But on the contrary, his performance was much
appreciated and in reward he was made the Governor of Egypt."

In contrast to this
Amir al-mu'minin's conduct was a high specimen of religious law
and ethics. He kept in view the requirements of truth and
righteousness even in adverse circumstances and did not allow his
chaste life to be tarnished by the views of deceit and
contrivance. If he wished he could face cunning by cunning, and
Muawiyah's shameful activities could have been answered by
similar activities. For example, when he put a guard on the
Euphrates and stopped the supply of its water (to Amir
al-mu'minin's men), then the supply of water could have been cut
from them also on the grounds that since they had occupied the
Euphrates it was lawful to retaliate, and in this way they could
be overpowered by weakening their fighting power. But Amir
al-mu'minin could never tarnish his hands with such an inhuman act
which was not permitted by any law or code of ethics, although
common people regard such acts against the enemy as lawful and
call this duplicity of character for achievement of success, a
stroke of policy and administrative ability. But Amir al-mu'minin
could never think of strengthening his power by fraud or duplicity
of behaviour on any occasion. Thus when people advised him to
retain the officers of the days of Uthman in their position and
to befriend Talhah and az-Zubayr by assigning them governorship of
Kufah and Basrah, and make use of Muawiyah's ability in
administration by giving him the government of Syria, Amir
al-mu'minin rejected the advice and preferred the commandments of
religious law over worldly expediency, and openly declared about
Muawiyah as follows:

If I allow Muawiyah
to retain what he already has I would be one "who taketh
those who lead (people) astray, as helpers" (Qur'an, 18:51).
Those who look at apparent successes do not care to find out by
what means the success has been achieved. They support anyone whom
they see succeeding by means of cunning ways and deceitful means
and begin to regard him an administrator, intelligent, a
politician, intellectually brilliant and so on, while he who does
not deploy cunning and fraudulent methods owing to his adherence
to Islamic commandments and divine instructions and prefers
failure to success secured through wrong methods is regarded as
ignorant of politics and weak in foresight. They do not feel it
necessary to think what difficulties and impediments exist in the
way of a person who adheres to principles and laws which prevent
him from proceeding forward even after approaching near
success."