Islam Guidance

SERMON 221 - Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib, Peace be Upon Him Recited the Verse Saying, “Engage (Your) Vying in Exuberance until You Come to the Graves” (Holy Qur’an, 102: 1-2) Then He Said the Following

How distant (from achievement) is their aim, how neglectful these visitors are and how difficult the affair is! They have not taken lessons from things which are full of lessons, but they took them from far off places. Do they boast on the dead bodies of their forefathers, or do they regard the number of dead persons as a ground for boasting about their number?! They want to revive the bodies that have become lifeless and the movements that have ceased. They are more entitled to be a source of admonishment than a source of pride and boasting. They are more suitable for being a source of humility than of honor.
They looked at them with weak-sighted eyes, descending into the hollow of ignorance. If they had asked about them from the dilapidated houses and empty courtyards, they would have said that they went into earth in the state of misguidance, and you, too, are heading ignorantly towards them. You trample their skulls, raise constructions on their corpses, graze what they have left and live in houses which they have vacated. The days (that lie) between them and you are also bemoaning you and reciting eulogies over you.
They are your fore-runners in reaching the goal. They have arrived at the watering places before you. They had positions of honor and plenty of pride. They were rulers and holders of positions. Now they have gone into the interstice where earth covers them from above and is eating their flesh and drinking their blood. They lie in the hollows of their graves lifeless, growing no more, hidden, not to be found. The approach of dangers does not frighten them; the adversity of circumstances does not grieve them. They do not mind earthquakes, nor do they heed thunder. They are gone and not expected back. They are existent but unseen. They were united but are now dispersed. They were together and are now separated.
Their records are unknown and their houses are silent, not because of length of time or distance of place, but because they have been made to drink the cup (of death) which has changed their speech into dumbness, their hearing into deafness and their movements into stillness. It seems as if they are fallen in slumber. They are neighbors not feeling affection for each other, friends who do not meet each other. The bonds of their knowing each other have been worn out; the regards of their friendship have been cut asunder. Everyone of them is, therefore, alone although they are a group; they are strangers though friends. They are unaware of morning after a night and of evening after a day. The night or the day, when they departed, has become ever existent for them. Or a night that would come without a day. They found the dangers of their place of stay more serious than they had feared. They witnessed that its signs were greater than they had guessed. The two objectives (namely Paradise and Hell) have been stretched for them up to a point beyond the reach of either fear or hope. Had they been able to speak, they would have become too dumb to describe what they witnessed or saw.
Even though their traces have been wiped out and their news has stopped, eyes are capable of drawing a lesson, as they looked at them, intelligent ears heard them, and they spoke without uttering words. So, they said that handsome faces have been destroyed and delicate bodies have been smeared by the earth. We have put on a worn-out shroud. The narrowness of the grave has over-whelmed us and strangeness has spread among us. Our silent abodes have been ruined. The beauty of our bodies has disappeared. Our known features have become hateful. Our stay in the places of strangeness has become long. We do not get relief from pain nor widening from narrowness.
Now, if you portray them in your mind, or if the curtains concealing them are removed for you, in such a state, when their ears have lost their power, turning deaf, their eyes have been filled with dust, sinking down, their tongues which were very active have been cut into pieces, their hearts which were ever wakeful have become motionless in their chests, in every limb of theirs a peculiar decay has taken place which has deformed it and paved the way for calamity towards it..., all these lie powerless, with no hand to help them, no heart to grieve over them, it is then that you would certainly realize the grief of their hearts and the dirt of their eyes.
Every trouble of theirs is such that its condition does not change and the distress does not clear away. How many a prestigious body and amazing beauty which earth has swallowed, although when in the world he enjoyed abundant pleasures and was nurtured in honor? He clung to enjoyments (even) in the hour of grief. If distress befell him, he would seek refuge in consolation through the pleasures of life, playing and being indulged in games. He was laughing at the world while the world was laughing at him because of a life full of forgetfulness. Then time trampled him like thorns, the days weakened his energy and death began to look at him from near. Then he was overtaken by a grief which he had never felt; There is sure to be a day without a night, ailments appeared in place of the health which he previously used to enjoy.
He then turned to that with which the physician had made him familiar, namely suppressing the hot (diseases) with cold (medicines) and curing the cold with hot doses. But the cold things did nothing save aggravate the hot ailments, while the hot ones did nothing except to increase the coldness. Nor did he acquire temperateness in his constitution. Rather, every ailment of his increased till his physicians became helpless, his attendants grew loathsome and his own people felt disgusted from describing his disease, avoided answering those who inquired about him and quarreled in front of him about the serious news which they were concealing from him. Thus, someone would say that his condition is what it is and would console them with hopes of his recovery, while another would advocate patience on missing him, recalling to them the calamities that had befallen the earlier generations.
In this state, when he was getting ready to depart from the world and leave his beloved ones, such a serious choking overtook him that his senses became bewildered and the dampness of his tongue dried up. Now, there was many an important question whose reply he knew about but he could not utter and many a voice that was painful for his heart that he heard but remained (unmoved), as though he was deaf to the voice of either, an elder whom he used to respect, or a youth whom he used to caress. The pangs of death are too hideous to be covered by description or be appreciated by the hearts of the people in this world.

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