Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

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3

Shurayh bin

Haarith had been holding an important post during the previous
regimes. Imam Ali (a) had also appointed him as a Qadhi (Chief
Judge) of Kufa. It was brought to the notice of Imam Ali (a) that
he had purchased a house for himself in the city (rather a costly
and expensive house, perhaps more expensive and luxurious than his
status demanded and that too rather at a cheaper price).

Imam Ali (a)

called him and asked of him: "I am given to understand that
you have purchased this house for eighty dinars and a sales deed
has also been completed regularizing it with signatures of
witnesses".

Shurayh

replied, "O Amir al-Mu''minin this is a fact". Hearing
this Imam Ali (a) felt annoyed and said to him: "Shurayh be
warned that a thing (death) will come to you; it will not take any
notice of this sales deed nor will it accept the testimony of the
witnesses but it will take you out of this house alone and
unattended and will drag you to your grave.

And before such

a thing happens, you must think well over the fact whether you
have purchased this house with the money which does not belong to
you but to somebody else and whether the purchase price was
acquired with foul means or it was an ill-gotten wealth, which met
its cost, if it was so, then remember that you will part (through
death) with this house and in the bargain you will lose your place
in Paradise.

If you had come

to me prior to this transaction I would have drafted such a sales
deed for you that you would not have cared to purchase this
property even for a dirham. You know what the transfer deed would
have been like, it would have been phrased in the following words:

A
humble and powerless creature has purchased this house from
another mortal being, its boundaries are as follows: On one side
it is bounded by calamities and disasters, on the other side with
disappointments and sorrows, on the third side its borders are
covered with inordinate and excessive desires ending in failures
and on the fourth side it adjoins the misleading and captivating
allurements of Satan, and the door of this house opens towards
this fourth side.

A man
leading his life under the merciless grip of intemperate and
disorderly desires has purchased this house from another person
who is being relentlessly pursued by death. And for the purchase
price he has bargained the glory of an honourably contented and
respectable way of living against the detestable life of
submitting to every form of humiliation for profits and pleasures.
The buyer had not realized what sorrows and degradations he was
purchasing and what he was paying in by way of the cost.

His
delivery now lies in the hands of One Who throws the bodies of
kings into dust and overthrows their empires, Who ends the lives
of despots and Who has brought to an end the dominions of Egypt,
Persia, Greece, Rome and Himyars, kings of Yemen, Who had
destroyed the wealth, power and glory of all those individuals who
had amassed wealth, gathered property, built very strong and
durable houses, furnished them with the choicest and most costly
furniture and surrounded them with beautiful gardens. Those people
were imagining that they and their descendants will enjoy the
fruits of their labours, though in reality everyone of the house
so built or the article so collected will have to be accounted for
on the Day of Judgement, the day when people will be rewarded or
punished according to their deeds, the day on which evil doers
will suffer for their vicious and wicked ways. Your mind will
corroborate and confirm this if it is kept free from intemperate
ambitions, from lust for alluring things, from sensuality and from
vicious affections and attachments.