Nahjul Balagha English (Sermon 18-20)

SERMON 18

Amir al-mu’minin said in disparagement of the

differences of view among the theologians.

            When (1) a problem is put before anyone of them he passes judgement on it from his imagination. When exactly the same problem is placed before another of them he passes an opposite verdict. Then these judges go to the chief who had appointed them and he confirms all the verdicts, although their Allah is One (and the same), their Prophet is one (and the same), their Book (the Qur’an) is one (and the same).

            Is it that Allah ordered them to differ and they obeyed Him? Or He prohibited them from it but they disobeyed Him? Or (is it that) Allah sent an incomplete Faith and sought their help to complete it? Or they are His partners in the affairs, so that it is their share of duty to pronounce and He has to agree? Or is it that Allah the Glorified sent a perfect faith but the Prophet fell short of conveying it and handing it over (to the people)? The fact is that Allah the Glorified says:

. . . We have not neglected anything in the Book(Qur’an) . . . (Qur’an, 6:38)

            And says that one part of the Qur’an verifies another part and that there is no divergence in it as He says:

. . . And if it had been from any other than Allah, they would surely have found in it much discrepancy.(Qur’an, 4 :82)

            Certainly the outside of the Qur’an is wonderful and its inside is deep (in meaning). Its wonders will never disappear, its amazements will never pass away and its intricacies cannot be cleared except through itself.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1).       It is a disputed problem that where there is no clear argument about a matter in the religious law, whether there does in reality exist an order about it or not. The view adopted by Abu’l-hasan al-Ash`ari and his master Abu `Ali al-Jubba’i is that in such a case Allah has not ordained any particular course of action but He assigned the task of finding it out and passing a verdict to the jurists so that whatever they hold as prohibited would be deemed prohibited and whatever they regard permissible would be deemed permissible. And if one has one view and the other another then as many verdicts will exist as there are views and each of them would represent the final order. For example, if one scholar holds that barley malt is prohibited and another jurist’s view is that it is permissible then it would really be both prohibited and permissible. That is, for one who holds it prohibited, its use would be prohibited while for the other its use would be permissible. About this (theory of) correctness Muhammad ibn Abdi’l-Karim ash-Shahrastani writes:

A group of theorists hold that in matters whereijtihad (research) is applied there is no settled view about permissibility or otherwise and lawfulness and prohibition thereof, but whatever the mujtahid (the researcher scholar) holds is the order of Allah, because the ascertainment of the view of Allah depends upon the verdict of the mujtahid. If it is not so there will be no verdict at all. And according to this view every mujtahid would be correct in his opinion. (al-Milal wa’l-nihal, p.98)

            In this case, the mujtahid is taken to be above mistake because a mistake can be deemed to occur where a step is taken against reality, but where there is no reality of verdict, mistake has no sense. Besides this, the mujtahid can be considered to be above mistake if it is held that Allah, being aware of all the views that were likely to be adopted has ordained as many final orders as a result of which every view corresponds to some such order, or that Allah has assured that the views adopted by themujtahids should not go beyond what He has ordained, or that by chance the view of every one of them would, after all, correspond to some ordained order or other.

            The Imamiyyah sect, however, has different theory, namely that Allah has neither assigned to anyone the right to legislate nor subjected any matter to the view of the mujtahid, nor in case of difference of views has He ordained numerous real orders. Of course, if the mujtahid cannot arrive at a real order then whatever view he takes after research and probe, it is enough for him and his followers to act by it. Such an order is the apparent order which is a substitute for the real order. In this case, he is excused for missing the real order, because he did his best for diving in the deep ocean and to explore its bottom, but it is a pity that instead of pearls he got only the sea-shell. He does not say that observers should except it as a pearl or it should sell as such. It is a different matter that Allah who watches the endeavours may price it at half so that the endeavour does not go waste, nor his passion discouraged.

            If the theory of correctness is adopted then every verdict on law and every opinion shall have to be accepted as correct as Maybudhi has written in Fawatih:

            In this matter the view adopted by al-Ash`ari is right. It follows that differing opinions should all be right. Beware, do not bear a bad idea about jurists and do not open your tongue to abuse them.

            When contrary theories and divergent views are accepted as correct it is strange why the action of some conspicuous individuals are explained as mistakes of decision, since mistake of decision by the mujtahid cannot be imagined at all. If the theory of correctness is right the action of Mu`awiyah and `A’ishah should be deemed right; but if their actions can be deemed to be wrong then we should agree that ijtihad can also go wrong, and that the theory of correctness is wrong. It will then remain to be decided in its own context whether feminism did not impede the decision of `A’ishah or whether it was a (wrong) finding of Mu`awiyah or something else. However, this theory of correctness was propounded in order to cover mistakes and to give them the garb of Allah’s orders so that there should be no impediment in achieving objectives nor should anyone be able to speak against any misdeeds.

            In this sermon Amir al-mu’minin has referred to those people who deviate from the path of Allah and, closing their eyes to light, grope in the darkness of imagination, make Faith the victim of their views and opinions, pronounce new findings, pass orders by their own imagination and produce divergent results. Then on the basis of the theory of correctness they regard all these divergent and contrary orders as from Allah, as though each of their order represents divine Revelation so that no order of theirs can be wrong nor can they stumble on any occasion. Thus, Amir al-mu’minin says in disproving this view that:

1) When Allah is One, Book (Qur’an) is one, and Prophet is one then the religion (that is followed) should also be one. And when the religion is one how can there be divergent orders about any matter, because there can be divergence in an order only in case he who passed the order has forgotten it, or is oblivious, or senselessness overtakes him, or he wilfully desires entanglement in these labyrinths, while Allah and the Prophet are above these things. These divergences cannot therefore be attributed to them. These divergences are rather the outcome of the thinkings and opinions of people who are bent on twisting the delineations of religion by their own imaginative performances.

2) Allah must have either forbidden these divergences or ordered creating them. If He has ordered in their favour, where is that order and at what place? As for forbidding, the Qur’an says:

. . .Say thou! ‘Hath Allah permitted you or ye forge a lie against Allah ?’ (10:59)

            That is, everything that is not in accordance with the Divine orders is a concoction, and concoction is forbidden and prohibited. For concocters, in the next world, there is neither success or achievement nor prosperity and good. Thus, Allah says:

And utter ye not whatever lie describe your tongues (saying): This is lawful and this is forbidden, to forge a lie against Allah; verily, those who forge a lie against Allah succeed not. (Qur’an, 16:116)

3) If Allah has left religion incomplete and the reason for leaving it halfway was that He desired that the people should assist Him in completing the religious code and share with Him in the task of legislating, then this belief is obviously polytheism. If He sent down the religion in complete form the Prophet must have failed in conveying it so that room was left for others to apply imagination and opinion. This, Allah forbid, would mean a weakness of the Prophet and a bad slur on the selection of Allah.

4) Allah has said in the Qur’an that He has not left out anything in the Book and has clarified each and every matter. Now, if an order is carved out in conflict with the Qur’an it would be outside the religious code and its basis would not be on knowledge and perception, or Qur’an and sunnah, but it would be personal opinion and one’s personal judgement which cannot be deemed to have accord with religion and faith.

5) Qur’an is the basis and source of religion and the fountain head of the laws of shari`ah. If the laws of shari`ah were divergent there should have been divergence in it also, and if there were divergences in it, it could not be regarded as Divine word. When it is Divine word the laws of shari`ah cannot be divergent, so as to accept all divergent and contrary views as correct and imaginative verdicts taken as Qur’anic dictates.

*****

 

SERMON 19

Amir al-mu’minin was delivering a lecture from the pulpit of (the mosque of) Kufah when al-Ash`ath ibn Qays (1) objected and said, “O’ Amir al-mu’minin this thing is not in your favour but against you.” (2) Amir al-mu’minin looked at him with anger and said:

            How do you know what is for me and what is against me? ! Curse of Allah and others be on you. You are a weaver and son of a weaver. You are the son of an unbeliever and yourself a hypocrite. You were arrested once by the Unbelievers and once by the Muslims, but your wealth and birth could not save you from either. The man who contrives for his own people to be put to sword and invites death and destruction for them does deserve that the near ones should hate him and the remote ones should not trust him.

            as-Sayyid ar-Ra_i says: This man was arrested once when an unbeliever and once in days of Islam. As for Amir al-mu’minin’s words that the man contrived for his own people to be put to sword, the reference herein is to the incident which occurred to al-Ash`ath ibn Qays in confrontation with Khalid ibn Walid at Yamamah, where he deceived his people and contrived a trick till Khalid attacked them. After this incident his people nicknamed him “`Urf an-Nar” which in the parlance stood for traitor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AL-ASH`ATH IBN QAYS AL-KINDI

(1).       His original name was Ma`di Karib and surname Abu Muhammad but because of his dishevelled hair he is better known as al-Ash`ath (one having dishevelled hair). When after Proclamation (of Prophethood) he came to Mecca along with his tribe, the Prophet invited him and his tribe to accept Islam. But all of them turned back without anyone accepting Islam. When after hijrah(immigration of the Holy Prophet) Islam became established and in full swing and deputations began to come to Medina in large numbers he also came to the Prophet’s audience with Banu Kindah and accepted Islam. The author of al-`Isti`ab writes that after the Prophet this man again turned unbeliever but when during the Caliphate of Abu Bakr he was brought to Medina as prisoner he again accepted Islam, though this time too his Islam was a show. Thus, ash-Shaykh Muhammad `Abduh writes in his annotations on Nahj al-balaghah:

Just as `Abdullah ibn Ubay ibn Salul was a companion of the Prophet, al-Ash`ath was a companion of `Ali and both were high ranking hypocrites.

            He lost one of his eyes in the battle of Yarmuk. Ibn Qutaybah has included him in the list of the one-eyed. Abu Bakr’s sister Umm Farwah bint Abi Quhafah, who was once the wife of an al-Azdi and then of Tamim ad-Darimi, was on the third occasion married to this al-Ash`ath. Three sons were born of her viz. Muhammad, Isma`il and Is’haq. Books on biography show that she was blind. Ibn Abi’l-hadid has quoted the following statement of Abu’l-Faraj wherefrom it appears that this man was equally involved in the assassination of `Ali (p.b.u.h.):

On the night of the assassination Ibn Muljam came to al-Ash`ath ibn Qays and both retired to a corner of the mosque and sat there when hujr ibn `Adi passed by that side and he heard al-Ash`ath saying to Ibn Muljam, “Be quick now or else dawn’s light would disgrace you.” On hearing this hujr said to al-Ash`ath, “O’ one-eyed man, you are preparing to kill ‘Ali” and hastened towards `Ali ibn Abi Talib, but Ibn Muljam had preceded him and struck ‘Ali with sword when hujr turned back people were crying, “Ali has been killed.”

It was his daughter who killed Imam hasan (p.b.u.h.) by poisoning him. Mas`udi has written that:

His (hasan’s) wife Ja`dah bint al-Ash`ath poisoned him while Mu`awiyah had conspired with her that if she could contrive to poison hasan he would pay her one hundred thousand Dirhams and marry her to Yazid. (Muruj adh-dhahab, vol. 2, p. 650)

            His son Muhammad ibn al-Ash`ath was active in playing fraud with ha_rat Muslim ibn `Aqil in Kufah and in shedding Imam husayn’s blood in Karbala’. But despite all these points he is among those from whom al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, at-Tirmidhi, an-Nasa’i and Ibn Majah have related traditions.

(2).       After the battle of Nahrawan, Amir al-mu’minin was delivering a sermon in the mosque of Kufah about ill effects of “Arbitration” when a man stood up and said “O’ Amir al-mu’minin, first you desisted us from this Arbitration but thereafter you allowed it. We cannot understand which of these two was more correct and proper.” On hearing this Amir al-mu’minin clapped his one hand over the other and said, “ This is the reward of one who gives up firm view” that is, this is the outcome of your actions as you had abandoned firmness and caution and insisted on “Arbitration,” but al-Ash`ath mistook it to mean as though Amir al mu’minin implied that “my worry was due to having accepted Arbitration,” so he spoke out, “O’ Amir al-mu’minin this brings blame on your own self” whereupon Amir al-mu’minin said harshly:

What do you know what I am saying, and what do you understand what is for me or against me. You are a weaver and the son of a weaver brought up by unbelievers and a hypocrite. Curse of Allah and all the world be upon you.

            Commentators have written several reasons for Amir al-mu’minin calling Ash`ath a weaver. First reason is, because he and his father like most of the people of his native place pursued the industry of weaving cloth. So, in order to refer  to the lowliness of his occupation he has been called ‘weaver’. Yamanese had other occupations also but mostly this profession was followed among them. Describing their  occupations Khalid ibn @afwan has mentioned this one first of all.

What can I say about a people among whom there are only weavers, leather dyers, monkey keepers and donkey riders. The hoopoe found them out, the mouse flooded them and a woman ruled over them. (al-Bayan wa’t-tabyin,vol. 1, p. 130)

            The second reason is that “hiyakah” means walking by bending on either side, and since out of pride and conceit this man used to walk shrugging his shoulders and making bends in his body, he has been called “hayik”.

            The third reason is --- and it is more conspicuous and clear --- that he has been called a weaver to denote his foolishness and lowliness because every low person is proverbially known as a weaver. Their wisdom and sagacity can be well gauged by the fact that their follies had become proverbial, while nothing attains proverbial status without peculiar characteristics. Now, that Amir al-mu’minin has also confirmed it no further argument or reasoning is needed.

            The fourth reason is that by this is meant the person who conspires against Allah and the Holy Prophet and prepares webs of which is the peculiarity of hypocrites. Thus, in Wasa’il ash-Shi`ah (vol. 12, p. 101) it is stated:

It was mentioned before Imam Ja`far as-@adiq (p.b.u.h.) that the weaver is accursed when he explained that the weaver implies the person who concocts against Allah and the Prophet.

            After the word weaver Amir al-mu’minin has used the word hypocrite, and there is no conjunction in between them in order to emphasise the nearness of meaning thereof. Then, on the basis of this hypocrisy and concealment of truth he declared him deserving of the curse of Allah and all others, as Allah the Glorified says:

Verily, those that conceal what we have sent of(Our) manifest evidences and guidance, after what we have (so) clearly shown for mankind in the Book(they are), those that Allah doth curse them and(also) curse them all those who curse (such ones).      (Qur’an, 2:159)

            After this Amir al-mu’minin says that “You could not avoid the degradation of being prisoner when you were unbeliever, nor did these ignominies spare you after acceptance of Islam, and you were taken prisoner.” When an unbeliever the event of his being taken prisoner occurred in this way that when the tribe of Banu Murad killed his father Qays, he (al-Ash`ath) collected the warriors of Banu Kindah and divided them in three groups. Over one group he himself took the command, and on the others he placed Kabs ibn Hani’ and al-Qash`am ibn Yazid al-Arqam as chiefs, and set off to deal with Banu Murad. But as misfortune would have it instead of Banu Murad he attacked Banu al-harith ibn Ka`b. The result was that Kabs ibn Hani’ and al-Qash`am ibn Yazid al-Arqam were killed and this man was taken prisoner alive. Eventually he got a release by paying three thousand camels as ransom. In Amir al-mu’minin’s words, “Your wealth or birth could not save you from either,” the reference is not to real ‘fidyah’ (release money) because he was actually released on payment of release money but the intention is that neither plenty of wealth nor his high position and prestige in his tribe could save him from this ignominy, and he could not protect himself from being a prisoner .                               

           

            The event of his second imprisonment is that when the Holy Prophet of Islam passed away from this world a rebellion occurred in the region of ha_ramawt for repelling which Caliph Abu Bakr wrote to the governor of the place Ziyad ibn Labid al-Baya_i. al-Ansari that he should secure allegiance and collect zakat and charities from those people. When Ziyad ibn Labid went to the tribe of Banu `Amr ibn Mu`awiyah for collection of zakat he took keen fancy for a she-camel of Shaytan ibn hujr which was very handsome and of huge body. He jumped over it and took possession of it. Shaytan ibn hujr did not agree to spare it and said to him to take over some other she-camel in its place but Ziyad would not agree. Shaytan sent for his brother al-`Adda’ ibn hujr for his support. On coming he too had a talk but Ziyad insisted on his point and did not, by any means, consent to keep off his hand from that she-camel. At last both these brothers appealed to Masruq ibn Ma`di Karib for help. Consequently, Masruq also used his influence so that Ziyad might leave the she-camel but he refused categorically, whereupon Masruq became enthusiastic and untying the she-camel handed it over to Shaytan. On this Ziyad was infuriated and collecting his men became ready to fight. On the other side Banu Wali`ah also assembled to face them, but could not defeat Ziyad and were badly beaten at his hands. Their women were taken away and property was looted. Eventually those who had survived were obliged to take refuge under the protection of al-Ash`ath. Al-Ash`ath promised assistance on the condition that he should be acknowledged ruler of the area. Those people agreed to this condition and his coronation was also formally solemnised. After having his authority acknowledged he arranged an army and set out to fight Ziyad. On the other side Abu Bakr had written to the chief of Yemen, al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayyah to go for the help of Ziyad with a contingent. Al-Muhajir was coming with his contingent when they came face to face. Seeing each other they drew swords and commenced fighting at a_-Zurqan. In the end al-Ash`ath fled from the battle-field and taking his remaining men closed himself in the fort of an-Nujayr. The enemy was such as to let them alone. They laid siege around the fort. Al-Ash`ath thought how long could he remain shut up in the fort with this lack of equipment and men, and that he should think out some way of escape. So one night he stealthily came out of the fort and met Ziyad and al-Muhajir and conspired with them that if they gave asylum to nine members of his family he would get the fort gate opened. They accepted this term and asked him to write for them the names of those nine persons. He wrote down the nine names and made them over to them, but acting on his traditional wisdom forgot to write his own name in that list. After settling this he told his people that he has secured protection for them and the gate of the fort should be opened. When the gate was opened Ziyad forces pounced upon them. They said they had been promised protection whereupon Ziyad’s army said that this was wrong and that al-Ash`ath had asked protection only for nine members of his house, whose names preserved with them. In short eight hundred persons were put to sword and hands of several women were chopped off, while according to the settlement nine men were left off, but the case of al-Ash`ath became complicated. Eventually it was decided he should be sent to Abu Bakr and he should decided about him. At last he was sent to Medina in chains along with a thousand women prisoners. On the way relations and others, men and women, all hurled curses at him and the women were calling him traitor and one who got his own people put to sword. Who else can be a greater traitor? However, when he reached Medina Abu Bakr released him and on that occasion he was married to Umm Farwah.

*****

SERMON 20

Death and taking lessons from it

            If you could see that has been seen by those of you who have died, you would be puzzled and troubled. Then you would have listened and obeyed; but what they have seen is yet curtained off from you. Shortly, the curtain would be thrown off. You have been shown, provided you see and you have been made to listen provided you listen, and you have  been guided if you accept guidance. I spoke unto you with truth. You have been called aloud by (instructive) examples and warned through items full of warnings. After the heavenly messengers (angels), only man can convey message from Allah. (So what I am conveying is from Allah).

*****