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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."
.

Forward to Sermon 200.

Back to Sermon 198.

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