Peak of Eloquence Nahjul Balagha By Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib - English Translation - Sermon 107

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One of the Sermons about the Vicissitudes of Time :

Praise be to Allah Who is Manifest before His creation because of themselves. Who is apparent to their hearts because of clear proof; Who created without meditating, since meditating does not befit except one who has thinking organs while He has no thinking organ in Himself. His knowledge has split forth the inside of unknown secrets and covered the bottom of deep beliefs.

Part of the same sermon about the Holy Prophet (h):

Allah chose him from the lineal tree of prophets, from the flame of light, from the forehead of greatness, from the best part of the valley of al-Bat’ha’, from the lamps for darkness and from the sources of wisdom.

Part of the same sermon:

The Prophet (h) was like a roaming physician who has readied

his ointments and heated his instruments. He uses them wherever the need arises for curing blind hearts, deaf ears and dumb tongues. He followed with his medicines the spots of negligence and places of perplexity.

Remonstrating with the Muslims:

They (people) did not take light from the lights of his wisdom nor did they produce flame from the flint of sparkling knowledge. So in this matter they are like grazing cattle and hard stones. Nevertheless hidden things have appeared for those who perceive. The face of right has become clear for the wanderer, the approaching moment has raised the veil from its face and signs have appeared for those who search for them.

What is the matter with me! I see that you are just bodies without spirits and spirits without bodies, devotees without good, traders without profits, wakeful but sleeping, present but unseen, seeing but blind, hearing but deaf and speaking but dumb.

I notice that misguidance has stood on its center and spread (all around) through its off-shoots. It weighs you with its weights and confuses you with its measures. Its leader is an out-cast from the community. He persists on misguidance. So on that day none from among you will remain except as the sediment in a cooking pot or the dust left after dusting a bundle. It will scrape you as leather is scraped and trample you as harvest is trampled and pick out the believer as a bird picks out a big grain from the thin grain.

Where are these ways taking you, gloom misleading you and falsehoods deceiving you? Whence are you brought and where are you driven? For every period there is a written document and everyone who is absent has to return. So listen to your godly leader and keep your hearts present. If he speaks to you be wakeful. The forerunner must speak truth to his people, should keep his wits together and maintain presence of mind. He has clarified to you the matter as the stitch hole is cleared and scraped it as the gum is scraped (from the twigs).

Nevertheless, now the wrong has set itself on its places and ignorance has ridden on its riding beasts. Unruliness has increased while the call for virtue is suppressed. Wrong has pounced in time like a devouring carnivore and shouts like a camel after remaining silent. People have become brothers over ill-doings, have forsaken the essential unity of the religion but have instead, united in speaking lies and bear mutual hatreds in the matter of truth.

When such is the case, the son will be a source of anger (instead of coolness of the eye to parents) and rain the cause of heat, the wicked will abound and the virtuous will diminish. The people of this time will be wolves, its rulers beasts, the middle class men gluttons and the poor (almost) dead. Truth will go down, falsehood will overflow, affection will be claimed with tongues but people will be quarrelsome at heart. Adultery will be the key to lineage while chastity will be rare and Islam will be worn unturned like (dead) skin.