Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

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Sermon
83

SERMON 83

About Amr ibn al-As

I am surprised at the
son of an-Nabighah that he says about me among the people of Syria
(ash-Sham) that I am a jester and that I am engaged in frolics and
fun. He said wrong and spoke sinfully. Beware, the worst speech is
what is untrue. He speaks and lies. He promises and breaks the
promise. He begs and sticks, but when someone begs from him he
withholds miserly. He betrays the pledge and ignores kinship.

When in a battle, he
commands and admonishes but only uptil the swords do not come into
action. When such a moment arrives his great trick is to turn
naked(1) before his adversary. By
Allah, surely the remembrance of death has kept me away from fun
and play while obliviousness about the next world has prevented
him from speaking truth. He has not sworn allegiance to Muawiyah
without purpose; but has beforehand got him to agree that he will
have to pay its price, and gave him an award for forsaking
religion.

(1).
Amir al-mu'minin here refers to the incident when the 'Conqueror
of Egypt' Amr ibn al-As exhibited the feat of his courage by
displaying his private parts. What happened was that when in the
battlefield of Siffin he and Amir al-mu'minin had an encounter, he
rendered himself naked in order to ward off the blow of the sword.
At this Amir al-mu'minin turned his face away and spared him his
life. The famous Arab poet al-Farazdaq said about it:

There is no good in
warding off trouble by ignominy as was done one day by Amr ibn
al-As by display of his private parts.

Even in this ignoble
act Amr ibn al-As had not the credit of doing it himself, but
had rather followed another one who had preceded him, because the
man who first adopted this device was Talhah ibn Abi Talhah who
had saved his life in the battle of Uhud by becoming naked before
Amir al-mu'minin, and so he showed this way to the others. Thus,
besides Amr ibn al-As this trick was played by Busr ibn Abi
Artat also to save himself from the sword of Amir al-mu'minin.
When after the performance of this notable deed Busr went to
Muawiyah the latter recalled Amr ibn al-As's act as precedent
in order to remove this man's shamefulness and said, "O'
Busr, no matter. There is nothing to feel shameful about it in
view of Amr ibn al-As's precedent before you."