Peak of Eloquence Nahjul Balagha By Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib - English Translation - Sermon 96

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Ali (x) Admonishing His Companions :

Although Allah gives a respite to the oppressor, His might does not spare him. Allah takes hold of him on the passage of his way and the status of that which suffocates the throats.

By Allah in Whose power my life lies! These people (Mu`awiyah and his men) will overcome you not because they have a better right than you but because of their hastening towards the wrong with their leader and your slowness about my right (to be followed). People are afraid of the oppression of their rulers while I fear the oppression of my subjects.

I called you forward but you did not come. I warned you but you did not listen. I called you secretly as well as openly, but you did not respond. I gave you sincere counsel, but you did not accept it. Are you present like the absent and slaves like masters? I recite before you points of wisdom but you turn away from them and I admonish you with far reaching advice but you disperse away from it. I rouse you for jihad against the people of rebellion but before I come to the end of my speech, I see you disperse like the sons of Saba.156 You return to your places and deceive one another by your counsel. I straighten you in the morning but you are back to me in the evening as curved as the back of a bow. The one who straightens has become weary while those to be straightened have become incorrigible.

O those whose bodies are present but wits are absent and whose wishes are scattered and their rulers are on trial. Your leader obeys Allah but you disobeyed him while the leader of the people of Syria disobeys Allah but they obey him. By Allah, I wish Mu`awiyah will exchange with me dinars for dirhams, so that he gives from me ten of you and gives me one from them.

people of Kufa! I have experienced in you three things and two others: you are deaf in spite of having ears, dumb in spite of speaking and blind in spite of having eyes. You are neither true supporters in combat nor dependable brothers in distress. Your hands may be soiled with earth. O examples of those camels whose herdsman has disappeared, if they are

The progeny of Saba’ ibn Yashjub ibn Ya`rub ibn Qahtan is known as the tribe of Saba’ [in English, Sheba]. When these people began to falsify prophets, to shake them, Allah sent a flood of water by which their gardens were submerged and they left their houses and property to settle down in different cities. This proverb arose out of this event and it is now applied wherever people so disperse that there be no hope of their joining together again.

By Allah, I see you in my imagination that if war becomes intense and action is in full swing you will run away from the son of Abu Talib like the woman who becomes naked in the front. I am certainly on clear guidance from my Master (Allah) and on the path of my Prophet (h) and I am on the right
path which I adhere to regularly.

About the Household of the Holy Prophet (h):

Behold the people of the Prophet’s family! Adhere to their direction. Follow their footsteps because they will never let you out of guidance and never throw you into destruction. If they sit down, you sit down and if they rise up you rise up. Do not go ahead of them, as you will thereby go astray and do not lag behind them as you will thereby be ruined.

I have seen the companions of the Prophet (h) but I do not find

anyone resembling them. They began the day with dust on the hair and face (in hardship of life) and passed the night in prostration and standing in prayers. Sometimes they put down their foreheads and sometimes their cheeks. With the recollection of their resurrection it seemed as though they stood on live coals. It seemed that in between their eyes there were signs like knees of goats, resulting from long prostrations. When Allah was mentioned their eyes flowed freely till their shirt collars were drenched. They trembled for fear of punishment and hope of reward as the tree trembles on the day of stormy wind.