He is born to the world without his consent and lives his childhood and youth...

He is born to the world without his consent and lives his childhood and youth; then in old age his sight starts failing, his memory does not function properly, he becomes hard of hearing. His stamina dwindles and loses the power to move around. He finally arrives at a stage of being senile.[^6] This is the conquest of time over us and our submission to it which Imam ‘Ali (as) acknowledges in this sentence and in the fourth sentence.

This is because, when Imam ‘Ali (as) was writing this treatise, he was more than 60 years of age. At this age a man clearly recognizes his weaknesses and the predominance of time.

Nizami (the Iranian poet) says: The vigor of life is up to the forty; When forty has passed, your limbs disintegrate; After the age fifty, your health goes away, Your eyes weaken and your legs become unstable; When sixty arrives, your body deteriorates, When seventy arrives you are sexually impotent; When you are eighty or ninety, You would suffer a lot; And if you ever become one hundred, It would be death in the form of life; When gray hair is seen among your hairs, It is a clue to hopelessness; You have inserted cotton in your ears, And you are unwilling to take it out.

Another poet says: Under this blue dome, I have lived for sixty years; When one year passes, I always regret the pleasures of the last one; I am surprised at the turning of the world. Which took away from me everything that it had given me; My knees and my arms became feeble, My cheeks and my hairs lost their color; I lost my strength and, I lost my teeth one by one; What is left behind and is heavy, Is the amount of my wrong - doings and desires; The Caravan bells warn us to leave.

And the fellow travelers are on the way; I regret that I don’t have a good record of good deeds; The provision is small but journey is long; The weight of my sins is too heavy, Even the mountain looks small compared with my sins; O God!

My sins compared with Your Forgiveness, Are like straw in front of a torrential flood; If Your Grace did not assist me, And if Your merits did not include me: I would end up in the hell, Having a miserable status; I am an ignorant creature, ashamed of my sins, I am plunged into the sea of sins; You are the Merciful Creator, You are Self-sufficient, You are Unique and You are the Forgiver.

Ayyadh Ibn Ghanam and Harun: When Harun Al-Rashid was heading for Mecca, he went to the house of Ayyadh Ibn Ghanam, a pious Gnostic, at Medina, and asked him for some advice.