Eternal Words Nahj al-Balaghah Sermons SERMON 166 - Advice for Observing Courtesy and Kindness and Keeping in and out of the Same
SERMON 166 - Advice for Observing Courtesy and Kindness and Keeping in and out of the Same
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The young among you should follow the elders while the elders should be kind to the young. Do not be like those rude people of the pre-Islamic (al-jahiliyyah) period who did not exert themselves in religion nor use their intellects in the matter of Allah. They are like the breaking of eggs in the nest of a dangerous bird because their breaking looks bad, but keeping them intact will mean the production of dangerous young ones.
Part of the same sermon about the autocracy
and oppression of the Umayyads and their fate
They will divide after their unity and scatter away from their nucleus. Some of them will stick to the branches and bend down as the branches bend, until Allah, the Sublime, will gather them together for the Day that will be the very worst for the Umayyads just as the scattered bits of clouds assemble in the autumn. Allah will create affinity among them. Then He will make them into a strong mass like the mass of clouds. Then He will open doors for them to flow out of their starting place like the flood of the two gardens (of Saba’) from which neither high rocks remained safe nor small hillocks. Its flow could be repulsed neither by strong mountains nor by high lands. Allah will scatter them in the low lands of valleys, then will He make them flow like streams throughout the earth. Through them He will arrange the taking of rights of one people by another people and make one people stay in the houses of those of other people’s. By Allah, all their status and esteem will dissolve as fat dissolves on the fire.
The Cause of Tyranny
O people! If you had not evaded support for the truth and had not felt weakness from crushing wrong, then he who does not match you will not have aimed at you, and he who over-powered you will not have overpowered you. But you roamed about the deserts (of disobedience) like Banu Isra’il (Children of Israel). I swear by my life that after me your tribulations will increase manifold because you will have abandoned the truth behind your backs, severed your ties with your near ones and established relations with remote ones. Be informed that if you had followed the one who was calling you (to guidance), he will have let you tread the ways of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.), then you will have been spared the difficulties of misguidance, and you will have thrown away the crushing burden from round your necks.
