Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Admonishing his own companions

Although Allah gives time to the oppressor, His
catch would not spare him. Allah watches him on the passage of his way and the position of
that which suffocates the throats.

By Allah in Whose power my life lies, these people
(Muawiyah and his men) will overcome you not because they have a better right than you
but because of their hastening towards the wrong with their leader and your slowness about
my right (to be followed). People are afraid of the oppression of their rulers while I
fear the oppression of my subjects.

I called you for war but you did not come. I warned
you but you did not listen. I called you secretly as well as openly, but you did not
respond. I gave you sincere counsel, but you did not accept it. Are you present like the
absent, and slaves like masters? I recite before you points of wisdom but you turn away
from them, and I advise you with far reaching advice but you disperse away from it. I
rouse you for jihad against the people of revolt but before I come to the end of my
speech, I see you disperse like the sons of Saba.⁽²⁾ You
return to your places and deceive one another by your counsel. I straighten you in the
morning but you are back to me in the evening as curved as the back of a bow. The
sraightener has become weary while those to be straightened have become incorrigible.

O' those whose bodies are present but wits are
absent, and whose wishes are scattered. Their rulers are on trial. Your leader obeys Allah
but you disobeyed him while the leader of the people of Syria (ash-Sham) disobeys Allah
but they obey him. By Allah, I wish Muawiyah exchanges with me like Dinars with Dirhams,
so that he takes from me ten of you and gives me one from them.

O' people of Kufah, I have experienced in you three
things and two others: you are deaf in spite of having ears, dumb in spite of speaking,
and blind in spite of having eyes. You are neither true supporters in combat nor
dependable brothers in distress. Your hands may be soiled with earth. O' examples of those
camels whose herdsman has disappeared, if they are collected together from one side they
disperse from the other. By Allah, I see you in my imagination that if war becomes intense
and action is in full swing you would run away from the son of Abi Talib like the woman
who becomes naked in the front. I am certainly on clear guidance from my Lord (Allah) and
on the path of my Prophet and I am on the right path which I adhere to regularly.

About the Household of the Holy
Prophet

Look at the people of the Prophet's family. Adhere
to their direction. Follow their footsteps because they would never let you out of
guidance, and never throw you into destruction. If they sit down, you sit down, and if
they rise up you rise up. Do not go ahead of them, as you would thereby go astray and go
not lag behind of them as you would thereby be ruined.

I have seen the companions of the Prophet but I do
not find anyone resembling them. They began the day with dust on the hair and face (in
hardship of life) and passed the night in prostration and standing in prayers. Sometimes
they put down their foreheads and sometimes their cheeks. With the recollection of their
resurrection it seemed as though they stood on live coal. It seemed that in between their
eyes there were signs like knees of goats, resulting from long prostrations. When Allah
was mentioned their eyes flowed freely till their shirt collars were drenched. They
trembled for fear of punishment and hope of reward as the tree trembles on the day of
stormy wind.
⁽¹⁾.
In the atmosphere that had been created soon after the Prophet the Ahlu'l-bayt (members of
his family) had no course except to remain secluded as a result of which world has
remained ignorant of their real qualities and unacquainted with their teachings and
attainments, and to belittle them and keeping them away from authority has been considered
as the greatest service to Islam. If Uthman's open misdeeds had not given a chance to the
Muslims to wake up and open their eyes there would have been no question of allegiance to
Amir al-mu'minin and temporal authority would have retained the same course as it had so
far followed. But all those who could be named for the purpose had no courage to come
forward because of their own shortcomings while Muawiyah was sitting in his capital away
from the centre. In these circumstances there was none except Amir al-mu'minin who could
be looked at. Consequently people's eyes hovered around him and the same common people
who, following the direction of the wind, had been swearing allegiance to others jumped at
him for swearing allegiance. Nevertheless, this allegiance was not on the count that they
regarded his Caliphate as from Allah and him as an Imam (Divine Leader) to obey whom was
obligatory. It was rather under their own principles which were known as democratic or
consultative. However, there was one group who was swearing allegiance to him as a
religious obligation regarding his Caliphate as determined by Allah. Otherwise, the
majority regarded him a ruler like the other Caliphs, and as regards precedence, on the
fourth position, or at the level of the common men after the three caliphs. Since the
people, the army, and the civil servants had been impressed by the beliefs and actions of
the previous rulers and immersed in their ways whenever they found anything against their
liking they fretted and frowned, evaded war and were ready to rise in disobedience and
revolt. Further, just as among those who fought in jihad with the Prophet there were some
seekers of this world and others of the next world, in the same way here too there was no
dearth of worldly men who were, in appearance, with Amir al-mu'minin but actually they had
connections with Muawiyah who has promised some of them positions and had extended to
others temptation of wealth. To hold them as Shiahs of Amir al-mu'minin and to blame
Shiism for this reason is closing the eyes to facts, because the beliefs of these people
would be the same as of those who regarded Amir al-mu'minin fourth in the series. Ibn
Abi'l-Hadid throws light on the beliefs of these persons in clear words:
Whoever observes minutely the
events during the period of Caliphate of Amir al-mu'minin would know that Amir al-mu'minin
had been brought to bay because those who knew his real position were very few, and the
swarming majority did not bear that belief about him which was obligatory to have. They
gave precedence to the previous Caliphs over him and held that the criterion of precedence
was Caliphate, and in this matter those coming later followed the predecessors, and argued
that if the predecessors had not the knowledge that the previous Caliphs had precedence
over Amir al-mu'minin they would not have preferred them to him. Rather, these people knew
and took Amir al-mu'minin as a citizen and subject. Most of those who fought in his
company did so on grounds of prestige or Arab partisanship, not on the ground of religion
or belief. (Sharh Nahj al-balaghah, vol.7, p.72)
⁽²⁾. The
progeny of Saba' ibn Yashjub ibn Yarub ibn Qahtan is known as the tribe of Saba'. When
these people began to falsify prophets then to shake them Allah sent to them a flood of
water by which their gardens were submerged and they left their houses and property to
settle down in different cities. This proverb arose out of this event and it is now
applied wherever people so disperse that there can be no hope of their joining together
again.
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Forward to Sermon 97.

Back to Sermon 95.