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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims Ali as an Apostle of Peace Ali as the right arm of Islam and the shield and buckler of Muhammad, is a vast and a complex subject. But Ali as an Apostle of Peace is a subject just as vast and just as complex. Few men, if any, have loved peace more or hated war less than Ali.

The students of history know that appeals in the name of peace, justice and fair-play, are made only by those people who are weak and who are on the defensive. There is no reason for the strong and the aggressive to make appeals in the name of peace. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and other great conquerors of history didn't make any appeals for peace to the nations they had defeated.

If Louis XIV and Napoleon ever sued their enemies for peace, it was only when their own armies began to suffer reverses. In our own times, it was not Hitler who was appealing to anyone for peace; it were the nations he had overrun which were appealing to him for peace in the name of humanity. If there is any pattern in history which is consistent, it is that the mighty, heady with power, rides roughshod; the weak seeks or tries to seek refuge in moral imperatives and ethical doctrines.

To this general and universal rule, there is, however, one exception, and that is in Ali ibn Abi Talib. Even when he was strong and his enemies were weak, he appealed to them for peace in the name of humanity, and he appealed to them to refrain from shedding blood. Even when he was victorious, he acted toward his defeated enemies as if they would do him a favor by forswearing war.

If an enemy was overcome, and he wished to save his life, all he had to do was merely to ask Ali to save his life, and he (Ali) saved his (the enemy's) life. And he did so with no preconditions. His enemies knew this through long experience, and they took every advantage of this knowledge. Many among them escaped the penalty of death in this manner, for treason and rebellion. As noted before, Ali was consistently consistent in upholding principle.

For this consistency, he had to pay a very high price. But was there an alternative? For him there was not. If he had, at any time in his career, compromised with principle, then he would have been no different from other rulers.