Then you happily loaded it off to the Hijaz without feeling...

Then you happily loaded it off to the Hijaz without feeling guilty for having appropriated it. How can you enjoy food and drink when you know that you are eating and drinking an unlawful food and drink. Fear Allah and return to these people their properties. If you do not so and Allah grants me power over you I shall punish you to the limit that I am not blamed before Allah about you and strike you with my sword with which I hadn’t striken anyone but he enters Hell.

By Allah, even if Hasan and Husayn had done what you did there would have been no leniency with me for them and they could not have won their way with me till I had restored from them the right and eradicated the wrong produced by their unjust action.

The Ruler and Bribe To Uthamn ibn Hunayf Al-Ansari, Imam’s Governor of Basrah, when he knew that the people of Basrah had invited Uthman to a banquet and he had attended: O’ Ibn Hunayf, I have come to know that a man of Basrah invited you to a feast and you hastened towards it. Foods of different colours were being chosen for you and bowls were brought to you. I never thought that you would accept the feast of a people whose poor is neglegted and their rich is invited.

Realize that your Imam has contented himself with two shabby pieces of cloth out of the world, and two loaves for his food. Certainly, you cannot do so but at least support me with piety, striving, chastity and uprightness, because, by Allah, I have not treasured any gold out of your world nor amassed plentiful wealth nor prepared for my old clothe a substitute, nor possessed a tiny span of its land.

If I wished I could have taken the way leading towards pure honey, fine wheat and silk clothes but it cannot be that my desire overcomes me and my greed takes me to choose good meals while in the Hijaz or in Yamamah there may be that who have no hope of getting a piece of bread or who does not remember his last satiety. Shall I lie with a satiated belly while around me there are hungry bellies and thirsty livers?

Shall I be content with being called ‘Amir Al-Mu’minin’ (the commander of the believers), without sharing with the people the hardships of life? I see as if one of you would say that if this is what the son of Abi Talib eats then weakness must have made him weak to fight his challengers and encounter the brave. Don’t they remember that the tree of desert is solider-trunked, while grean twigs have soft bark, and the wild bushes are very strong for burning and slow in dying off.