Is that what you want me to do?

Is that what you want me to do? What is important for me, is the pleasure of God, and not the pleasure of the Arab nobles. If I were distributing my personal wealth to the Muslims, I could not discriminate against the non-Arabs and the clients. But the wealth that I am distributing to them now, is not mine; it's their own. How can I show discrimination? How can I deprive a man of his share only because he is a non-Arab, and give it to someone else only because he is an Arab?

This I shall never do.” Not only the Quraysh and the Arab aristocracy did not receive any preferential treatment from Ali over the non-Quraysh and the non-Arab in the distribution of public funds, but the members of his own family received less than anyone else in his dominions. One of them was his own elder brother, Aqeel. He considered his stipend to be so small that he could not live on it, and he left Kufa and went to Syria where he lived in style and luxury at the court of Muawiya.

Ali repeatedly warned Muslims of the dangers of moral compromise and of subverting their worth to materialism. When Ali ascended the throne of khilafat, he committed himself to putting an end to the economic caste-system of the Arabs, and their unIslamic capitalist system. Within four years of his incumbency, he had fulfilled his commitment. The caste-system of the Muslims and their new capitalist system, both had vanished from his dominions.

All the ‘high priests' of the economic caste-system of the Arabs, and their neo-capitalists found sanctuary in Damascus. If Muslims are equal, then their equality ought to be an obvious thing but it was not. Ali made it obvious. And if Islam prides itself on its attachment to justice, then it (justice) ought to be a visible thing but it was not. Ali made it visible. He made equality obvious and justice visible.

From his own officials, Ali demanded and exacted personal and fiscal integrity of the highest order. He served notice to everyone that even the most powerful office in the government cannot be used as a sanctuary for miscreants nor its legitimate privileges employed to withhold evidence of wrong-doing. What were the mainsprings of Ali's actions and policies? It appears that every detail of his life was governed by taqwa (the fear of doing something that would displease God).

He entertained only that thought, he uttered only that word, and he performed only that deed which he knew, would win for him the pleasure of God.