Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sermons
Sermon
17

SERMON 17

About those who sit for
dispensation of justice among people but are not fit for
it.

Among(1)
all the people the most detested before Allah are two persons. One
is he who is devoted to his self. So he is deviated from the true
path and loves speaking about (foul) innovations and inviting
towards wrong path. He is therefore a nuisance for those who are
enamoured of him, is himself misled from the guidance of those
preceding him, misleads those who follow him in his life or after
his death, carries the weight of others' sins and is entangled in
his own misdeeds.

The other man is he
who has picked up ignorance. He moves among the ignorant, is
senseless in the thick of mischief and is blind to the advantages
of peace. Those resembling like men have named him scholar but he
is not so. He goes out early morning to collect things whose
deficiency is better than plenty, till when he has quenched his
thirst from polluted water and acquired meaningless things.

He sits among the
people as a judge responsible for solving whatever is confusing to
the others. If an ambiguous problem is presented before him he
manages shabby argument about it of his own accord and passes
judgement on its basis. In this way he is entangled in the
confusion of doubts as in the spider's web, not knowing whether he
was right or wrong. If he is right he fears lest he erred, while
if he is wrong he hopes he is right. He is ignorant, wandering
astray in ignorance and riding on carriages aimlessly moving in
darkness. He did not try to find reality of knowledge. He scatters
the traditions as the wind scatters the dry leaves.

By Allah, he is not
capable of solving the problems that come to him nor is fit for
the position assigned to him. Whatever he does not know he does
not regard it worth knowing. He does not realise that what is
beyond his reach is within the reach of others. If anything is not
clear to him he keeps quiet over it because he knows his own
ignorance. Lost lives are crying against his unjust verdicts, and
properties (that have been wrongly disposed of) are grumbling
against him.

I complain to Allah
about persons who live ignorant and die misguided. For them
nothing is more worthless than Qur'an if it is recited as it
should be recited, nor anything more valuable than the Qur'an if
its verses are removed from their places, nor anything more
vicious than virtue nor more virtuous than vice.

(1).
Amir al-mu'minin has held two categories of persons as the most
detestable by Allah and the worst among people. Firstly, those who
are misguided even in basic tenets and are busy in the spreading
of evil. Secondly, those who abandon the Qur'an and sunnah and
pronounce injunctions through their imagination. They create a
circle of their devotees and popularise the religious code of law
concocted by themselves. The misguidance and wrongfulness of such
persons does not remain confined to their own selves but the seed
of misguidance sown by them bears fruit and growing into the form
of a big tree provides asylum to the misguided and this
misguidance goes on multiplying. And since these very people are
the real originators the weight of other's sins is also on their
shoulders as the Qur'an says:

And certainly they
shall bear their own burdens, and (other) burdens with their own
burdens... (29:13)