Furthermore...

Furthermore, he has explained the events of the life of Ali with great dexterity and in a manner in which they had not been penned before. No historian or writer, however deft and dexterous he may be, can draw a true picture of the Commander of the Faithful even in a thousand pages, nor can he explain the dreadful events which took place in his time. The things which this wonderful and unmatched person thought of, and acted upon, had not till then been seen or heard by anyone.

They are more than a historian can cover even in a very detailed treatise. Hence, whatever picture of Ali is described by a writer will inevitably be incomplete. However, the object of an author in writing a book like this is to collect the details of the actions and words of the Commander of the Faithful from all possible sources and to ponder over them very carefully and then to present them in such a way that it may be possible to see a glimpse of the Imam as he was.

This is what the author has done in this book. I am sure that George Jordac, a research scholar and an unbiased person as he is, has been successful in describing the life of the Imam to a large extent and those who read it will be obliged to say that it is the biography of a person who was second to the Prophet of Islam. Michael Na'imah Previous…