Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah says, “`Ali (a.

Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah says, “`Ali (a.s) once dyed his hair with henna once, and then abstained from doing it.” Because of excessive use of the armor, the hair on his forehead had fallen. His height is slightly more than the average.

`Ali (a.s) himself said, “Allah has bestowed on me a modest body and height When my adversary is short, I strike on his head to cut him into two pieces and if he is tall I cut him horizontally into two.” His voice was clear and loud, his style and speed of walking was like that of the Prophet (a.s), elegant and slightly drooping to the front. When he advanced to face an adversary in battle, he used to walk briskly and his eyes used to get reddish.

Ibn Qutaybah writes in al-Ma`arif that a woman saw `Ali (a.s) and said, “As if he had been broken and he was then rejoined!” People thought that it means that his body was asymmetrical. In fact, what the woman said was an Arabic idiom and its allegorical meaning is different from its apparent meaning.

Therefore, Sayyid Muhsin al-`Amili writes in A`yan al-Shi`ah and `Umar Abul-Nasr in al-Zahrah also writes the saying of Ibn `A’ishah that the quoted sentence is for the person whose arms are muscular and his eyes piercing the ground and not a person who is asymmetrical of body! Previous…