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for June 2010
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Article 12
The secret of Imam Ali's (as) force of
attraction
What is the reason for the friendship and love
for Ali in people's hearts? Nobody has yet
discovered the secret of this love. That is, no
one has been able to formulate it, and say that
if it were like this then that would follow, or
if it were like that then this would happen.
However it does of course have a secret. There
is something in the love which dazzles the one
who loves and draws him towards it. This
attraction and love are the highest degrees of
love; Ali is the one whom people's hearts adore,
whom humanity loves. Why? In what does Ali's
extraordinariness lie, that it incites love and
draws hearts towards itself, that it plays the
tune of eternal life and lives for ever? Why do
all hearts find out about themselves through
him, and do not feel him to be dead but find him
living?
Certainly the basis for love for him is not his body, because
his body is not now among us and we have not perceived it with
our senses. Love for Ali is also not hero-worship, which exists
in every nation. It is a mistake, too, to say the love for Ali
is by way of love for moral and human excellence, and that love
for Ali is a humanistic love. It is true that Ali was the
manifestation of the perfect man, and it is true that man loves
great figures of humanity; but if Ali had had all those human
excellences that he had - that wisdom and knowledge, that
self-sacrifice and altruism, that humility and modesty, that
courtesy, that kindness and mercy, that protection of the weak,
that justness, that liberality and love of freedom, that respect
for humanity, that generosity, that bravery, that magnanimity
and mercy towards his enemies, and, in the words of Rumi:
In bravery you are the Lion of the Lord,
In generosity who indeed knows who you are? [1]
that munificence, benevolence and beneficence - if Ali had had
all these, which he did have, but had not had the divine touch
in him, it is quite certain that there would not have been the
feeling of sympathy and awakening of love that there is today.
Ali is loved in the sense that he had the divine link; our
hearts are unconsciously completely involved with, and connected
to, the Truth, right in their depths, and since they find Ali to
be a great sign of the Truth and a manifestation of the
attributes of the Truth they are in love with him. In reality,
the basis for the love for Ali is the connection of our souls
with the Truth which has been laid in our primordial natures,
and since our primordial natures are eternal, love for Ali is
also eternal.
There are many outstanding features in Ali's being, but that
which has assigned him a resplendent and shining place for ever
is his faith and morality, and it is that which has given him
his divine charisma.
Sawdah al-Hamdaniyah, a self-sacrificing and devoted follower of
Ali, extolled Ali in front of Mu'awiyah and among other things
said this verse:
May the blessing of God be vouched to him
Whom the grave took away and with whom justice was interred.
He had a pact with God that he should put no substitute in His
place,
Thus he was joined with Truth and Faith.
Sa'sa'ah ibn Suhan al-'Abdi was another one of those lovers of
Ali. He was one of those who took part on that night with a few
others in the burial of Ali. After they had buried Ali and
covered his corpse with soil, Sa'sa'ah put one of his hands over
his heart, threw earth over his head and said:
"May death be agreeable to you, whose birth was pure, whose
patience was firm, whose holy struggle was great! You attained
your aim and your commerce was fruitful.
"You fell down before your Creator, and He gladly accepted you
and His angels appeared around you. You were placed near the
Prophet, and God gave you a place near him. You reached the
degree of your brother, Mustafa, and you drank from his
overflowing cup.
"I beseach God that I may follow you and that I may act
according to your ways; that I may love those who love you, and
be the enemy of those who are your enemy, that I may be gathered
in the pavilion of your friends.
"You saw what others did not see, and reached what others did
not reach; you pursued the holy struggle beside your brother,
the Prophet, and you rose up for the religion of God as was
worthy of it, till age-old habits were done away with, confusion
curbed and Islam and the faith put in order. May the best of
blessings be upon you!
"Through you the backs of the believers were made firm, the ways
made clear and habits broken. No-one could amass your virtues
and excellences in himself. You answered the call of the
Prophet; you jumped ahead of others in accepting him: you
hurried to help him, and protected him with your life. You
struck with your sword, Dhu' l-fiqar, in places of fear and
savagery, and you broke the back of oppression. You caste down
the structures of polytheism and vileness, and you pulled down
those who were astray into dust and blood. So may you be well
pleased, O Amir al-mu'minin !
"You were the closest of men to the Prophet, you were the first
person to follow Islam. You were overflowing with certainty,
strong of heart and more self-sacrificing than any, your share
in good was greater. May God not deprive us of retribution for
your suffering, and may He not despise us after you have gone!
"By God, I swear that your life was the key to good, the lock
against exil; and your death is the key to every evil and the
lock against every good. If the people had accepted you,
blessings would have showered on them from the heaven and the
earth; but they preferred this world to the next." [46]
Truly they preferred this world, and as a-consequence they could
not endure the justice and unwaveringness of Ali. In the end the
hand of stiffness and stagnation came out of the sleeve of the
people and martyred Ali.
Ali - may peace be upon him - is without equal in having totally
selfless friends and people who loved him, who have given their
lives in the path of friendship and love for him. Their
wonderful, absorbing and stunning biographies honour the pages
of Islamic history. The criminal hands of such despicable people
as Ziyad ibn Abih and his son `Abdullah, as Hajjaj ibn Yusuf and
Mutawakkil, and at the head of them all Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan,
are stained with the blood of these human lives up to their
elbows.
References
(1). Rumi, Mathnavi, bk.l (translated by Nicholson).
(2). Biharu 'l-anwar, vo1.42, pp.295 -296 (new ed.)
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