ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Masterpieces of Rhetoric Methood (nahj Al-balagha) The Profound Affection Ali realized that the logic of affection is higher than that of the law, that man’s kindness to man and other creatures is but the argument of life against death, and existence on non-existence. And Ali’s attitude towards woman has not been that one which some had depicted.

If it has been of the justice of cosmos and balance in existnce that blaze of summer and seqeezig clouds of winter meet on one level that rivulets, tornadoes and soft breezes exterminate in one truth, and that nature carries in itself, in each one of its manifestations, the law of reward and punishment; so one aspect of this justice too, and of this balance is that the powers of nature deal with each other and interpenetrate; whether they were the elements of the inanimate or those of life and equally as well what is resulted from this or separated from that.

And because man’s characteristics, morals, inclinations, and sensations are resulted from the elements of life which merge and so consititute what we call man’s personality, so they are dealing with each other interpenetrating, and what proves that is the long observation and accurate comparison, then the bases of modern science which observes, balances, and establishes its discoveries on foundations and bases.

It has been mentioned that man in Ali Ibn Abi Talib’s doctrine is the ideal picture of the ideal cosmos. It is attributed to him this saying in which he addresses man: You suppose yourself a tiny body And within you the greater world is enfolded It is natural in such a condition that Ali insists on asking whatever concerns man of that which belong to his time and the capabilities of his age.

It is also natural that he insists on reveal-ing what lies in this “body within which the greater world is enfolded” of the aspects of cosmic justice, and the equivalence of existence within the frame round which his views turned. Directly and deeply Ali sensed that there are among crea-tures, connections that do not vanish except by the vanishing of these creatures and anything that decreases these connections, decreases also the meaning of existence itself.

If man is one of these creatures, so is connected with them as a relation of existence. And if that was – and it is as such – so the connection of a creature with its like is more fitting and priorer.