لطفا منتظر باشید ...
SERMON 114
Seeking rain
O' my Allah! surely our mountains have dried up and
our earth has become dusty. Our cattle are thirsty and are bewildered in their enclosures.
They are moaning like the moaning of mothers for their (dead) sons. They are tired of
going to their meadows and longing for their watering places. O' my Allah! have mercy on
the groan of the groaning and yearn of the yearning. O' my Allah! have mercy on their
bewilderment and their passages and their groaning in their yards.
O' my Allah ! we have come out to Thee when the
years of drought have crowded over us like (a herd of) thin camels, and rain clouds have
abandoned us. Thou art the hope for the afflicted and succour for the seeker. We call Thee
when the people have lost hopes, cloud has been denied and cattle have died, that do not
seize us for our deeds and do not catch us for our sins, and spread Thy mercy over us
through raining clouds, rain-fed blossoming, amazing vegetation, and heavy down-pours with
which all that was dead regains life and all that was lost returns.
O' my Allah! give rain from Thee which should be
life giving, satisfying, thorough, wide-scattered, purified, blissful, plentiful and
invigorating. Its vegetation should be exuberant, its branches full of fruits and its
leaves green. With it Thou reinvigorates the weak among Thy creatures and bringeth back to
life the dead among Thy cities. O' my Allah! give rain from Thee with which our high lands
get covered with green herbage, streams get flowing, our sides grow green, our fruits
thrive, our cattle prosper, our far-flung areas get watered and our dry areas get its
benefit, with Thy vast blessing and immeasurable grant on Thy distressed universe and Thy
untamed beasts. And pour upon us rain which is drenching, continuous and heavy; wherein
one cycle of rain clashes with the other and one rain drop pushes another (into a
continuous chain), its lightning should not be deceptive, its cheek not rainless, its
white clouds not scattered and rain not light, so that the famine-stricken thrive with its
abundant herbage and the drought stricken come to life with its bliss. Certainly, Thou
pourest down rain after the people lose hopes and spreadest Thy mercy, since Thou art the
Guardian, the praiseworthy.
As-Sayyid ar-Radi says: The wonderful expressions of
this sermon: Amir al-mu'minin's words "insahat jibaluna" means the mountains
cracked on account of drought. It is said "insaha'ththawbu" when it is torn. It
is also said "insaha'n-nabtu" or "saha" or "sawwaha" when
vegetation withers and dries up.
His words "wa hamat dawabbuna" means
became thirsty, as "huyam" means thirst.
His words "hadabiru's-sinin". This is
plural of "hidbar". It means the camel whom treading has made thin. So Amir
al-mu'minin likened with such a camel the year in which drought had occurred. The Arab
poet Dhu ar-Rummah has said:
These thin camels remain in their places, facing
hardships and move only when we take them to some dry area.
His words "wa la qazain rababuha". Here
"al-qaza" means small pieces of cloud scattered all round.
His words "wa la shaffanin dhihabuha". It
stands for "wa la dhata shaffanin dhihabuha". "ash-shaffan" means the
cold wind and "adh-dhihab" means light rain. He omitted the world
"dhata" from here because of the listener's knowledge of it.
.Forward to Sermon 115.Back to Sermon 113.
