Peak of Eloquence Nahjul Balagha By Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib - English Translation - Sermon 184

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Praising Allah and His Wonderful Creatures

Praise be to Allah! He is such that senses cannot perceive Him, place cannot contain Him, eyes cannot see Him and veils cannot cover Him. He proves His eternity by the bringing His creation into existence and (also) by originating His creation. (He proves) His existence, and through their spirituality, He proves that there is nothing similar to Him. He is true to His promise. He is too Sublime to be unjust to His creatures. He stands by equity among His creation and implements justice over them in His commands. He provides testimony of His own being through the creation of things from ever, through their marks of incapability of His power and through their powerlessness against death of His eternity.

He is One, but not by counting. He is everlasting without any limit. He is existent without any support. Minds admit His existence without the need for the senses. Things which can be seen testify to Him without confronting Him. Imagination cannot encompass Him. He manifests Himself to the imagination with his help for the imagination, refusing to be conceived by the imagination. He has made imagination the arbiter. He is not “big” in the sense that volume is vast, so His body is also “big”. Nor is He great in the sense that His limits should extend to the utmost, so His frame should be extensive. But He is ‘big” in status and great in authority.

About the Holy Prophet (h)

I testify that Muhammad (h) is His slave, His chosen Prophet (h) and His responsible trustee.May Allah bless him and his

descendants. Allah sent him with undeniable proofs, with a clear success and an open path. So he conveyed the message, declaring the truth with it. He led the people on the (correct) path, established signs of guidance and minarets of light, making Islam’s ropes strong and knots firm.

Part of the Same Sermon: About the Creation of Animal

Species

Had they pondered over the greatness of His power and the vastness of His bounty, they would have returned to the right path and feared the punishment of the Fire. But hearts are sick and eyes are impure. Do they not see the small things which He has created, how He

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strengthened their system and opened for them the hearing and the sight, making for them bones and skins? Look at the ant with its small body and delicate form. It can hardly be seen in the corner of the eye, nor by the perception of the imagination. Look and see how it moves on the earth and leaps at its sustenance. It carries the grain to its hole and deposits it in its place of repose. It collects during the summer for its winter and during strength for the period of its weakness. Its livelihood is guaranteed and it is fed to be fit. Allah, the Kind, does not forget it, and (Allah the Giver) does not deprive it, even though it may be in a dry stone or in fixed rocks.

If you have thought about its digestive tract, in its high and low parts, the carapace of its belly, its eyes and ears in its head..., you will be amazed at its creation, and you will feel it difficult to describe it. Exalted is He Who made it stand on its legs and erected it on its pillars (limbs). No other originator took part with Him in its origination, and no one else has any power to assist Him in its creation. If you tread on the paths of your imagination and let it reach its extremes, it will not lead you anywhere except to the fact that the Originator of the ant is the same as He Who is the Originator of the date-palm because everything has (the same) delicacy and detail, and every living being has little difference with another.

Creation of the Universe

In His creation, the big, the delicate, the heavy, the light, the strong, the weak are all equal.184 So is the sky, the air, the winds and the water. Therefore, look at the sun, moon, vegetation, plants, water, stone, the difference of this night and day, the springing of the streams, the large number of the mountains, the height of their peaks, the diversity of languages and the variety of tongues. Then woe unto him who disbelieves in the One who ordains, who denies the Ruler! These believe that they are like grass for which there is no cultivator nor any maker for their own sundry shapes. They have not relied on any argument for what they assert,

184The meaning is: If the smaller thing in creation is examined, it will be found to contain all that which is found in the biggest creatures. Each will