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Back You are here: Home Eternal Words Nahj al-Balaghah Sermons SERMON 1 - In this sermon, he recalls the creation of the earth and sky and the birth of Adam:

SERMON 1 - In this sermon, he recalls the creation of the earth and sky and the birth of Adam:


Praise is due to Allah Whose worth cannot be described by speakers, whose bounties cannot be counted by calculators and whose claim (to obedience) cannot be satisfied by those who attempt to do so, whom the height of intellectual courage cannot appreciate and the depths of understanding cannot reach; He, for whose description no limit has been laid down, no praise exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed. He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion and made firm the shaking earth with rocks.
The foremost in religion is the acknowledgment of Him. The perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him. The perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness. The perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure. The perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus, whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognizes His like. Who recognizes His like regards Him as two. Who regards Him as two recognizes parts for Him, and who recognizes parts for Him mistakes Him, and who mistakes Him points at Him, and who points at Him admits limitations for Him, and who admits limitations for Him numbers Him.
Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained, and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else. He is a Being but not through phenomenon of coming into being. He Exists but not of non-Existence. He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation. He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation. He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.

Creation of the Universe

He initiated creation and commenced it originally, without undergoing reflection, without making use of any experiment, without innovating any movement and without experiencing any mental aspiration. He allotted all things their times, put together their variations, gave them their properties and determined their features. He knew them before creating them, fully realizing their limits and confines and appreciated their propensities and intricacies.
When the Almighty created the openings of the atmosphere, expanse of firmament and strata of winds, He allowed water, whose waves were stormy and whose surges leapt one over the other, to flow onto it. He loaded dashing winds and breaking typhoons, ordered them to shed it back (as rain), gave the wind control over the vigor of the rain and acquainted it with its limitations. The wind blew under it while water flowed furiously over it.
Then, the Almighty created forth wind and made its movement sterile, perpetuated its status, intensified its motion and spread it far and wide. Then He ordered the wind to raise deep waters and to intensify the waves of the oceans. So the wind churned the water like the churning of curd and pushed it fiercely into the firmament, throwing its front status on the rear while the stationary status flowed till its level was raised and the surface was full of foam. Then Almighty raised the foam to the open wind and vast firmament and made therefrom the seven skies. He made the lower one as a stationary surge and the upper one as protective ceiling and high edifice without any pole to support it or nail to hold it together. Then He decorated them with stars and the light of meteors and hung in it the shining sun and effulgent moon under the revolving sky, moving the ceiling and rotating firmament.

Creation of the Angels

Then He created the openings between the high skies and filled them with all classes of His angels. Some of them are in prostration and do not rise. Others are in kneeling positions and do not stand up. Some of them are in array and do not leave their status. Others are extolling Allah and do not get tired. The sleep of the eye or the slip of wit or languor of the body or effect of forgetfulness does not affect them.
Among them are those who work as trusted bearers of His message, those who serve, speaking tongues for His prophets and those who carry His orders and injunctions. Among them are the protectors of His creatures and guards of the doors of the gardens of Paradise. Among them are those whose steps are fixed on earth but their necks protrude into the skies. Their limbs are out on all sides, their shoulders are in accord with the columns of the Divine Throne, their eyes are cast down before it, they have spread their wings down under it and they have rendered between themselves and all else curtains of honor and screens of power. They do not think of their Creator through image, do not impute created attributes to Him, do not confine Him within abodes and do not point at Him through illustrations.

Creation of Adam, Peace be Upon Him

Allah collected clay from hard, soft, sweet and sour earth, which He moistened with water till it became pure and kneaded it with moisture till it became gluey. From it He carved an image with curves, joints, limbs and segments. He solidified it till it dried up for a fixed time and a known duration. Then He blew into it out of His Spirit whereupon it took the pattern of a human being with a mind that governed him, intelligence which he made use of, limbs that served him, organs that changed his status, sagacity that differentiated between truth and untruth, tastes and smells, colors and species. He was a mixture of clays of different colors, cohesive materials, divergent contradictories and differing properties like heat, cold, softness and hardness.
Then Allah asked the angels to fulfill His promise with them and to accomplish the pledge of His injunction to them by acknowledging Him through prostration to Him and submission to His honored status. So Allah said: “Prostrate to Adam, so they prostrated except Iblis (Satan). (Holy Qur’an, 2: 34; 7: 11; 17: 61; 18: 50; 20: 116).
Self-importance withheld him and vice overcame him. So that he took pride in his own creation with fire and treated the creation of clay contemptuously. So Allah allowed him time in order to let him fully deserve His wrath and to complete (man’s) test and to fulfill the promise (He had made to Satan). Thus, He said: “Verily you have been allowed time till the known Day." (Holy Qur’an, 15: 38, 38: 81).
Thereafter, Allah placed Adam (p.b.u.h.) in a house where He made his life and his stay safe and He cautioned him of Iblis and his enmity. Then his enemy (Iblis) envied Adam’s abiding in Paradise and his contacts with the virtuous. So he changed his conviction into wavering and determination into weakness. He thus converted his happiness into fear and his prestige into shame. Then Allah offered to Adam (p.b.u.h.) the chance to repent, taught him words of His Mercy, promised him return to His Paradise and sent him down to the place of trial and procreation of Progeny.

Allah Chooses His Prophets, Peace be Upon Them

From Adam’s progeny, Allah chose prophets and took their pledge for His revelation and for carrying His message as their trust. Throughout the course of time many people perverted Allah’s trust with them and ignored His status and took associates along with Him. Satan turned them away from knowing Allah and kept them aloof from His worship. Then Allah sent His Messengers and a series of His prophets toward people to get them to fulfill the pledges of His creation, to recall His bounties to them, to exhort them by preaching, to unveil before them the hidden virtues of wisdom and to show them the signs of His Omnipotence. Of these signs He showed the sky which is raised over them, the earth that is placed beneath them, a means of livelihood to sustain, death that makes them die, ailments that turn them old and incidents that successively betake them.
Allah never allowed His creation to remain without a Prophet (p.b.u.h.) deputed by Him, or a book sent down from Him or a binding argument or a standing plea. These Messengers were such that they did not feel little because of smallness of their number or the largeness of the number of their falsifiers. Among them was either a predecessor who would name the one to follow or the follower who had been introduced by the predecessor.

The Prophethood of Muhammad,
Peace be Upon Him and His Progeny

In this way, ages passed by and times rolled on. Fathers passed away while sons took their places till Allah deputed Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) as His Prophet, in fulfillment of His promise and in completion of His Prophethood. Muhammad’s pledge had been taken from the Prophets (p.b.u.t.), his traits of character were well reputed and his birth was honorable. The people of the earth at this time were divided in different parties, their aims were separate and ways were diverse. They either loved Allah and His creation or twisted His Names or turned to those other than Him. Through Muhammad (p.b.u.h.), Allah guided them out of wrong and with his efforts took them out of ignorance.
Then Allah chose Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) to meet Him, selected him for His own nearness, regarded him too dignified to remain in this world and decided to remove him from this place of trial. So He drew him towards Himself with honor. Allah may shower His blessing on him and his progeny.

The Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah

But the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) left among you the same that other prophets left among their people, as Prophets do not leave their people intentionally (in the dark) without a clear path and a standing ensign. He left the Book of your Creator clarifying its permission and prohibitions, its obligations and discretion, its repealing injunctions and the repealed ones, its permissible matters and compulsory ones, its particulars and the general ones, its lessons and illustrations, its long and the short ones, its clear and obscure ones, detailing its abbreviations and clarifying its obscurities.
In it there are some verses whose knowledge is obligatory and others whose ignorance by the people is permissible. It also contains what appears to be obligatory according to the Book but its repeal is signified by the Prophet’s action (Sunnah) or that which appears compulsory according to the Prophet’s action but the Book allows not following it. Or there are those which are obligatory in a given time but not so after that time. Its prohibitions also differ. Some are major ones for which there exists the threat of fire (Hell) and others are minor ones for which there are prospects of forgiveness. There are also those of which a small portion is also acceptable (to Allah) but they are capable of being expanded.

In this Same Sermon, He Spoke thus about the Hajj:

Allah has made obligatory upon you the pilgrimage (hajj) to His sacred House which is the turning point for the people who go to it as beasts or pigeons go towards spring water. Allah, the most Glorified One, made it a sign of their supplication before His Greatness and their acknowledgment of His Dignity. He selected from among His creation those, who on listening to His call, responded to it and testified to His word. They stood in the status of His Prophets and resembled His angels who surround the Divine Throne securing all the benefits of performing His worship and hastening towards His promised forgiveness. Allah, the most Glorified One, made it (His sacred House) an emblem for Islam and an object of respect for those who turn to it. He made obligatory its pilgrimage and laid down its claim for which He held you responsible to discharge it. Thus, Allah, the most Glorified One, said:
“Allah (purely) for Allah, is incumbent upon mankind, the pilgrimage to the House, for those who can afford to journey thither. And whoever denies, then verily Allah is Self-sufficiently independent of the Worlds” (Holy Qur’an, 3: 97).

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