By Allah, the son of Abu Quhafah…

owd of people rushing to me. It advanced towards me from every side like the mane of the hyena so much so that Hasan and Husayn were getting crushed and both the ends of my shoulder garment were torn. They collected around me like a herd of sheep and goats. When I took up the reins of government one party broke away and another turned disobedient while the rest began acting wrongfully as if they had not heard the word of Allah saying: That abode in the hereafter, We assign it for those who intend not to exult themselves in the earth, nor (to make) mischief (therein); and the end is (best) for the pious ones. (Qur’an, 28: 83) Yes, by Allah, they had heard it and understood it but the world appeared glittering in their eyes and its embellishments seduced them. Behold, by Him who split the grain (to grow) and created living beings, if people had not come to me and supporters had not exhausted the argument and if there had been no pledge of Allah with the learned to the effect that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of the oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed I would have cast the rope of Caliphate on its own shoulders, and would have given the last one the same treatment as to the first one. Then you would have seen that in my view this world of yours is no better than the sneezing of a goat. (It is said that when Amir al-mu’minin reached here in his sermon a man of Iraq stood up and handed him over a writing. Amir al-mu’minin began looking at it, when Ibn ‘Abbas said, “O’ Amir al-mu’minin, I wish you resumed your Sermon from where you broke it. ” Thereupon he replied, “O’ Ibn ‘Abbas it was like the foam of a Camel which gushed out but subsided. ” Ibn ‘Abbas says that he never grieved over any utterance as he did over this one because Amir al-mu’minin could not finish it as he wished to. ) Al-Sharif al-Radi says: The words in this sermon “like the rider of a camel” mean to convey that when a camel rider is stiff in drawing up the rein then in this scuffle the nostril gets bruised, but if he lets it loose in spite of the camel’s unruliness, it would throw him somewhere and would get out of control. “ashnaq an-naqah”is used when the rider holds up the rein and raises the camel’s head upwards. In the same sense the word“shanaqa an-naqah”is used. Ibn as-Sikkit has mentioned this inIslah al-Mantiq. Amir al-mu’minin has said“ashnaqa laha”instead of“ashnaqaha”, this is because he has used this word in harmony with“aslasa laha”and harmony could be retained only by using both in the same form. Thus, Amir al-mu’minin has used“ashnaqa laha”as though in place of“in rafa’a laha ra’saha”, that is, “if he stops it by holding up the reins. ”