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Back You are here: Home Eternal Words Nahj al-Balaghah Sermons SERMON 17 - About Those Who Sit for Dispensation of Justice among People but Are Not Fit for It

SERMON 17 - About Those Who Sit for Dispensation of Justice among People but Are Not Fit for It


Among all the people, the most detested before Allah are two persons. One is he who is devoted to his self. So he is deviated from the true path and loves speaking about (foul) innovations and inviting toward the wrong path. He is, therefore, a nuisance for those who are enamored of him, is himself misled from the guidance of those enamored of him, is himself misled from the guidance of those preceding him, misleads those who follow him in his life or after his death, carries the weight of others’ sins and is entangled in his own misdeeds.
The other man is he who has picked up ignorance. He moves among the ignorant, is senseless in the thick of mischief and is blind to the advantages of peace. Those resembling like men have named him scholar but he is not so. He goes out early morning to collect things whose deficiency is better than plenty, till when he has quenched his thirst form polluted water and acquired meaningless things.
He sits among the people as a judge responsible for solving whatever is confusing to the others. If an ambiguous problem is presented before him he manages a shabby argument about it of his own accord and passes judgment on its basis. In this way, he is entangled in the confusion of doubts as in the spider’s web, not knowing whether he was right or wrong. If he is right, he fears lest he errs, while if he is wrong, he hopes he is right. He is ignorant, wandering astray in ignorance and riding on carriages aimlessly moving in darkness. He does not try to find the reality of knowledge. He scatters the traditions as the wind scatters the dry leaves.
By Allah! He is not capable of solving the problems that come to him nor is he fit of the status assigned to him. Whatever he does not know he doses not regard it worth knowing. He does not realize that what is beyond his reach is within the reach of others. If anything is not clear to him, he keeps quiet over it because he knows his own ignorance. Lost lives are crying against his unjust verdicts and properties (that have been wrongly disposed of) are grumbling against him.
I complain to Allah about persons who live ignorant and die misguided. For them nothing is more worthless than Holy Qur’an if it is recited as it should be recited, nor anything more valuable than the Holy Qur’an if is verses are removed from their places, nor anything more vicious than virtue nor more virtuous than vice.

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