But if this creature was of the living beings...

But if this creature was of the living beings, then what fastens him to the living beings of his kind is firmer and stronger. As to man – the head of living creatures – his connection with his brother man is the first necessity for his existence as an individual and a group. When Ali states that the righteous society is the one in which social justice predominate in its broader meanings and nobler forms, he is but establishing a law or what is of the law.

But this law does not become clear in his mind and does not become a necessity except because it is a natural outcome of what we called the spirit of comprehensive cosmic justice which imposes the existence of this law. Hence we see Ibn Abi Talib insisting intensely on looking beyond these laws and protecting them through what is more sublime than them, the humanitarian sympathy. Sympathy is nothing but this deep material and spiritual inclination to perfection and sublimity.

It is then a moral necessity since it is an existential necessity. The first page that Ali spreads of the pages of sympathy begins with reminding people that they are all brothers, so he describes them as ‘my brothers’ in a clear address while he is the prince of them.

Then he adds that by reminding the rulers that they are people’s brothers, all people, and that this fraternity entails compassion by necessity, saying to his masters over his armies: “It is obligatory on the ruler that the distinction he achieves, or the wealth with which he has been exclusively endowed, should not make him change his behaviour towards those under his authority, and that the riches Allah has bestowed on him should increase him in nearness to his slaves and kindness to his brethren.” And what he mentions to himself and his officers, that they and people are brothers by affection and sympathy, he returns and states it in a comprehensive wisdom directing towards all human beings without difference or distinction: “You are brothr-ren, dirty natures and bad conscience have separated you.” He,thus, places dirtiness of nature and evil of conscience in a side, and the sympathy of heart and affection of the soul in another side.