Persons who possessed nothing only a few years ago...

Persons who possessed nothing only a few years ago appropriated for their personal use fabulous amounts of wealth. This was the time when worldly tendencies gained strength in the Muslim society and the Muslim Ummah started on a course of moral decline and degeneration. It was following the awareness of this great danger to society that 'Ali raised his cry of protest to warn the Ummah of Islam.

Al-Mas'udi, writing about the days of 'Uthman, says: 'Uthman was a man of extraordinary generosity (of course, it was exercised at the cost of the public treasury). The government officials and the people followed his example. He was the first among the Caliphs to build a house made of stone and mortar with wooden doors made of teak and juniper, and amassed other properties, such as gardens, orchards, and springs, in al-Madinah.

When he died, there were 150,000 Dinars and a million Dirhams in cash with his treasurer and his property in Wadi al-Qura, Hunayn, and elsewhere was valued above 100,000 Dinars. His legacy consisted of a large number of horses and camels. Then he writes: During his reign, a group of his associates also hoarded similar amounts of wealth. Al-Zubayr ibn al-'Awwam built a house in Basrah which still stands intact in the year 332 H. [al-Mas'udi's own time].

It is also well known that he built similar houses in Egypt, Kufah, and Alexandria. When al-Zubayr died he left 50,000 Dinars in cash, a thousand horses and thousands of other things. The house which Talhah ibn 'Abd Allah built of brick, mortar and teak in Kufah still exists and is known as 'Dar al-Talhatayn.' Talhah's daily income from his properties in Iraq was one thousand Dinars. He had one thousand horses in his stables.

A one-thirty-second (1/32) part of the wealth that he left at his death was estimated at 84,000 Dinars ... Al-Mas'udi mentions similar amounts of wealth in the possession of Zayd ibn Thabit, Ya'la ibn 'Umayyah and others. Evidently, such huge amounts of wealth do not emerge from under the ground nor fall from the sky. Such immense riches are never amassed except by the side of extreme and horrifying poverty.

That is why 'Ali (A), in sermon 129, after warning the people of the dangers of worldliness, says: You live in a period when virtues recede and evils advance step by step, and the Satan becomes greedier in his eagerness to ruin human beings. Today his equipment has been reinforced, his traps are set in every place, and his prey comes easily.