Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sermons
Sermon
164

SERMON 164

Describing the wonderful
creation of the peacock

About the wonderful creation of
birds

Allah has provided
wonderful creations including the living, the lifeless, the
stationary, and the moving. He has established such clear proofs
for His delicate creative power and great might that minds bend
down to Him in acknowledgement thereof and in submission to Him,
and arguments about His Oneness strike our ears. He has created
birds of various shapes which live in the burrows of the earth, in
the openings of high passes and on the peaks of mountains.

They have different
kinds of wings, and various characteristics. They are controlled
by the rein of (Allah's) authority. They flutter with their wings
in the expanse of the vast firmament and the open atmosphere. He
brought them into existence from non-existence in strange external
shapes, and composed them with joints and bones covered with
flesh. He prevented some of them from flying easily in the sky
because of their heavy bodies and allowed them to use their wings
only close to the ground. He has set them in different colours by
his delicate might and exquisite creative power.

Among them are those
which are tinted with one hue and there is no other hue except the
one in which they have been dyed. There are others which are
tinted with one colour, and they have a neck ring of a different
colour than that with which they are tinted.

About the Peacock

The most amazing among
them in its creation is the peacock, which Allah has created in
the most symmetrical dimensions, and arranged its hues in the best
arrangement with wings whose ends are inter-leaved together and
whose tail is long. When it moves to its female it spreads out its
folded tail and raises it up so as to cast a shade over its head,
as if it were the sail of a boat being pulled by the sailor. It
feels proud of its colours and swaggers with its movements. It
copulates like the cocks. It leaps (on the female) for fecundation
like lustful energetic men at the time of fighting.

I am telling you all
this from observation, unlike he who narrates on the basis of weak
authority, as for example, the belief of some people that it
fecundates the female by a tear which flows from its eyes and when
it stops on the edges of the eyelids the female swallows it and
lays its eggs thereby and not through fecundation by a male other
than by means of this flowing tear. Even if they say this, it
would be no amazing than (what they say about) the mutual feeding
of the crows (for fecundation). You would imagine its feathers to
be sticks made of silvers and the wonderful circles and sun-shaped
feathers growing thereon to be of pure gold and pieces of green
emerald. If you likened them to anything growing on land, you
would say that it is a bouquet of flowers collected during every
spring. If you likened them to cloths, they would be like printed
apparels or amazing variegated cloths of Yemen. If you likened
them to ornaments then they would be like gems of different colour
with studded silver.

The peacock walks with
vanity and pride, and throws open its tail and wings and laughs
admiring the handsomeness of its dress and the hues of its
necklace of gems. But when it casts its glance at its legs it
cries loudly with a voice which indicates its call for help and
displays its true grief, because its legs are thin like the legs
of Indo-Persian cross-bred cocks. At the end of its shin there is
a thin thorn and on the crown of its head there is a bunch of
green variegated feathers. Its neck begins in the shape of a
goblet and its stretch up to its belly is like the hair-dye of
Yemen in colour or like silk cloth put on a polished mirror which
looks as if it has been covered with a black veil, except that on
account of its excessive lustre and extreme brightness it appears
that a lush green colour has been mixed with it. Along the
openings of its ears there is a line of shining bright daisy
colour like the thin end of a pen. Whiteness shines on the black
background. There is hardly a hue from which it has not taken a
bit and improved it further by regular polish, lustre, silken
brightness and brilliance. It is therefore like scattered blossoms
which have not been seasoned by the rains of spring or the sun of
the summer.

It also sheds its
plumage and puts off its dress. They all fall away and grow again.
They fall way from the feather stems like the falling of leaves
from twigs, and then they begin to join together and grow till
they return to the state that existed before their falling away.
The new hues do not change from the previous ones, nor does any
colour occur in other than its own place. If you carefully look at
one hair from the hairs of its feather stems it would look like
red rose, then emerald green and then golden yellow.

How can sharpness of
intellect describe such a creation, or faculty of mind, or the
utterances of describers manage to tell of it. Even its smallest
parts have made it impossible for the imagination to pick them out
or for tongues to describe them. Glorified is Allah who has
disabled intellects from describing the creation which He placed
openly before the eyes and which they see bounded, shaped,
arranged and coloured. He also disabled tongues from briefly
describing its qualities and also from expanding in its praise.

The magnificence of
the Creator in great and small creation

Glorified is Allah who
has assigned feet to small ants and gnats and also to those above
them, the serpents and the elephants. He has made it obligatory
upon Himself that no skeleton in which He infuses the spirit would
move, but that death is its promised place and destruction its
final end.

A part of the same
sermon

Describing Paradise

If you cast your
mind's eye at what is described to you about Paradise, your heart
would begin to hate the delicacies of this world that have been
displayed here, namely its desires and its pleasures, and the
beauties of its scenes, and you would be lost in the rustling of
the trees whose roots lie hidden in the mounds of musk on the
banks of the rivers in Paradise and in the attraction of the
bunches of fresh pearls in the twigs and branches of those trees,
and in the appearance of different fruits from under the cover of
their leaves. These fruits can be picked without difficulty as
they come down at the desire of their pickers. Pure honey and
fermented wine will be handed round to those who settle down in
the courtyards of its palaces.

They are a people whom
honour has always followed till they were made to settle in the
house of eternal abode, and they obtained rest from the movement
of journeying. O' listener! If you busy yourself in advancing
towards these wonderful scenes which will rush towards you, then
your heart will certainly die due to eagerness for them, and you
will be prepared to seek the company of those in the graves
straight away from my audience here and hasten towards them. Allah
may, by His mercy, include us and you too among those who strive
with their hearts for the abodes of the virtuous.

Note explaining some
of the wonderful and obscure portions of this sermon

As-Sayyid ar-Radi
says: In Amir al-mu'minin's words "ya'urru
bimalaqihihi", "al-arr" implies
"copulation", e.g. when it is said "arra'r-rajulu
al-mar'ata ya'urruha", it means "He copulated with the
woman."

In his words
"ka'annahu qalu dariyyin anajahu nutiyyuhu",
"al-qal" means the sail of a boat. "dari"
means belonging to Darin which is a small town on the coast from
where scents are bought. And "anajahu" means
"turned it". It is said "anajtun'n-naqata - like
nasartu - anajuha anjan". "When you turn the
she-camel." And "an-nuti" means sailor. His words
"daffatay jufunihi" means edges of the eyelids, since
"ad-daffatan" means the two edges. His words "wa
filadhu'z-zabarjadi": "al-filadh" is the plural of
"al-fildhah" it means piece. His words "ka
ba'isi'l-lu'lu'i'r-ratibi". "al-kibasah" means
bunch of dates. "al-asalij" means twigs. Its singular
is "usluj".