Peak of Eloquence Nahjul Balagha By Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib - English Translation - Sermon 171

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About the Consultative Committee and the Battle of Jamal

Praise be to Allah from Whose view one sky does not conceal another sky nor one earth another earth!

Part of the same sermon: About the “Consultative

Committee” After the Death of `Umar ibn al-Khattab:

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Someone176 said to me, “O son of Abu Talib! You covet the caliphate.” I said to him, “Rather, you are, by Allah, more greedy, although more remote from it, while I am more suited as well as nearer. I have demanded it as my right, while you are intervening between me and it and you are turning my face from it.” When I knocked at his ears with arguments among the crowd of those present he was startled as if he was stunned not knowing what reply to give me about it.

O Lord! I seek Your succor against the tribesmen of Quraish and those who are assisting them because they are denying me (the rights of) kinship, have lowered my high status and are united in opposing me in the matter (of the caliphate) which is my right then they said, “Be informed that the rightful thing is that you have it and also that you may leave it.”177

“They (the tribesmen of Quraish and those who are assisting them) were not only content to keep me away from my right over the

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caliphate which they have usurped (from me), but rather claimed that it was their right whether to give it to me or prevent me from the same, and that I have no right to argue with them.”Furthermore, the intention (of Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (x)) was as follows: “Had they not said that it

was right to keep away from the caliphate, it would have been easy to endure it. This is so because this will have, at least, showed their admitting my right although they were not prepared to concede it” (Sharh Nahjul-Balagha, Vol. 9, p. 306).

Part of the Same Sermon: Describing the People of Jamal

They (Talhah, az-Zubayr and their supporters) came out dragging the wife of the Messenger of Allah (Aisha) just as a bondmaid is dragged for sale. They took her to Basra where those two (Talhah and az-Zubayr) put their own women in their houses while exposing the wife of the Messenger of Allah to themselves and to others in the army in which there was not a single individual who had not pledged his obedience and sworn to me allegiance quite willingly, without any compulsion.

Here in Basra, they approached my Governor and coffers of the public treasury, the funds of its other inhabitants. They killed some of them in captivity as well as others in treachery. By Allah, even if they had willfully killed only one individual from among the Muslims without any fault, it will have been lawful for me to kill all of this army because they were present in it but did not disagree with it nor prevented it by tongue or hand, not to say that they killed from among the Muslims a number equal to that with which they had marched on them.