CHAPTER 9

VERSE

9.1

Nifṭawayh, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArafah al-Azdī al-Naḥwī, transmitted the following poetry by the commander of the faithful, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib:72

Praise God! My lord is the eternal creator,

no partner shares his kingdom.

He apprised the disbelievers of their outcome

and will reward the believers as promised.

Our defeat is a lesson for us,

perhaps right will yet take the place of error.

God will give victory to his servants, victory comes from him;

he will make an example of the disbelievers for denying the truth.

Woe to you! If you speak boastingly of our brothers

whom Mount Uḥud took unto herself,

then remember Ṭalḥah whom we left dead on the ground,

swords glinting fire between us.

Remember ʿUthmān killed by our spears,

whose wife tore her shift to shreds.

With nine others, the banner between them,

who went to drink at the pools of death.

The best of Fihr and the noblest too,

proud-nosed, high-born, numerous.

With a swift spearthrust, Muḥammad the Good killed Ubayy

and left him writhing under a canopy of dust.

Vultures and hyenas fight over him,

one carries away a choice piece, another bides his time.

Those whom you killed when you came upon us without warning

went on to earn reward and bliss.

For them, the delight of paradise,

a place neither too hot nor too cold.

May God bless them whenever their names are mentioned,

fighters in so many true battles.

They were loyal to God’s messenger, men of restraint,

their noses proudly high-bridged, among them Ḥamzah the Lion.

Muṣʿab was also a lion protecting the prophet,

until a bloodsmeared jackal washed himself in his gore.73

Our dead are not like your dead—

God delivered yours into the fires of hell, its gates well-guarded.

9.2.1

The following are ʿAlī’s verses upon his slaying of ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wadd.⁷⁴ ʿAmr fell when ʿAlī slew him and his private parts were exposed. ʿAlī moved away, saying:

Can horsemen attack me like this?

Tell my friends about me and them.

Today my fury prevents me from fleeing.

I am resolved, my aim unswerving.

I awoke this morning anticipating battle,

in my scabbard a sharp sword the color of salt.

Ibn ʿAbd swore an oath, bracing for battle, and I made a vow

—who is the liar among us?—

that we would neither flee nor hold back.

We met. We exchanged blows.

I turned away when I saw him fall,

a great palm tree tumbling to the ground between the knolls.

I held back and did not plunder his garments.

Had I been slain he would have stripped me of mine.

He fought for the stone idol, a foolish choice,

while I fought in righteousness for Muḥammad’s lord.

Do not think that God will disgrace his religion or his prophet,

O gathering of confederates.

9.2.2

ʿAmr’s sister came on the scene to find her brother slain. Who killed him? she asked. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, she was told. A noble equal! she exclaimed, and recited:

If ʿAmr’s slayer had been any other man,

I would have wept till my soul left my body.

But his slayer is ʿAlī,

and the one long known as the city’s champion is not to be faulted for being felled by him.

9.2.3

With regard to his slaying of ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wadd, ʿAlī also recited:

Three lined up against Islam,

one has been taken out.75

Abū ʿAmr Hubayrah fled and did not return,

only an experienced warrior would have come back.

Sharp Indian swords and keen hunting spears prevented them

from facing us on the morning we met in battle.

9.2.4

ʿAlī also recited:

Honoring him, our swords struck those who strayed from him,

they perceived neither the straight path nor his guidance.

When we recognized his guidance, we took the road of obedience to the Merciful,

the road of truth and piety.

We fought for God’s messenger when they attacked.

The Muslims, people of perspicacity, turned to him.

9.3

ʿAlī recited the following verses about the Battle of Uḥud:

I see the polytheists, treacherous,

persistent in their errant and sinful ways.

They say: “We went home on the morning of that frightful battle

with spears that had drunk blood.”

Treacherous in their fighting, they boast of slaying Ḥamzah;

he resides now in the highest station.

Let them remember that Ḥamzah killed ʿUtbah in the Battle of Badr,

he slew many, and fought without weakness;

And let them remember that I prostrated Ṭalḥah, their ram,

in plain sight on the field. God be praised!

9.4

ʿAlī recited:76

I know, and one who is just knows.

I have true conviction.

I do not stray from the clear verses of wisdom

coming from a God who is kind, most kind.

A message that believers pore over,

a message that Muḥammad was chosen to deliver.

Muḥammad became mighty among us,

mighty at home and in battle.

You hotheads who threaten him

when he has not oppressed or done violence to anyone:

Do you not fear the great punishment?

You should know that one protected by God is not like the one who is fearful,

Not prostrated—yet—under his sword

like Kaʿb.

The morning he came bringing mischief,

then stomped away like an injured camel.

God sent down Gabriel with instructions to kill him,

in a heavenly revelation to his servant.

Many an eye spent the night weeping over him,

bursting forth whenever Kaʿb’s death was mentioned.

The al-Naḍīr tribe said to Muḥammad, “Leave us be for a while

for we are not done mourning.”

But he expelled them all, saying “Be gone!

Scatter in groups and bands, willing or not.”

He sent al-Naḍīr into exile

—they had been living in a beautifully decorated place—

To Adhriʿāt

on their weak, mangy, emaciated camels.

9.5

ʿAlī said:77

Don’t you see that God has shown his messenger great generosity,

the generosity of a powerful, munificent God?

Consigning disbelievers to a place of humiliation,

where they taste the ignominy of captivity and death.

The evening found God’s messenger mighty in victory—

God’s messenger was sent in justice.

He brought the Furqān⁷⁸ revealed by God,

its verses clear for people of intelligence.

Some believed in it with conviction,

and, God be praised, by evening they were united.

Others denied it, their hearts strayed,

so the lord of the throne increased their corruption.

The messenger needed only God to oppose their evil in the Battle of Badr,

and God sufficed a people roused to righteous anger, whose acts were most beauteous.

In their hands, light and gleaming swords,

used in battle after long polishing and sharpening.

They left there hotheaded youths prostrate,

and generous men in their prime.

Mourning women spent the night spilling tears,

in drops and in torrents.

Mourners wail for ʿUtbah the Errant and his son.

They wail for Shaybah. They wail for Abu Jahl.

They wail for the one-legged man, for the son of the nose-cut one.79

Mothers stripped of sons, their hearts burning, their bereavement plain.

Many Meccans took up residence in the wells of Badr,

noble men, generous in war and drought.

But error called to them and they answered,

—but error’s ropes are frayed and falling apart.

By afternoon they were residents of hell,

too preoccupied with their own troubles to make mischief or to hate.

9.6

ʿAlī said in an elegy for the prophet:

The crier brought the news at night,

alarming and disconcerting me when he started shouting it out.

When I saw what news he brought, I said to him:

“If your news is of a death, then anyone’s but the messenger of God!”

But what I feared was true, and he did not care

that my friend had been for me brightness and beauty.

By God, I shall not forget you, Muḥammad,

as long as caravans carry me, as long as I cross dry rivers.

Whenever I reach a twisting ravine in the earth

I find traces of Muḥammad, new and old.

He was a swift courser: bold horsemen scattered from his charge,

as though a ferocious beast were bearing down upon them.

A lion among lions, he protected his lair by the awe he inspired,

and rapacious lions fled from him.

Strong, bold, and robust. He was Death itself—

whether the enemy came to him on the morning of battle or he to them.

Let horsemen weep for God’s messenger as they sally on a raid,

steeds raising dust like enveloping mist.

Let the front lines weep for God’s messenger when blows fall,

when skulls are fractured, and armies destroyed.

9.7

ʿAlī said about a group of heretics whom he had killed and burned:80

When I saw it was evil

I kindled the fire and called to Qanbar.

9.8

ʿAlī said:⁸¹

Whose is the black banner, dappled with shadows?

When the call “Take it forward, Ḥuḍayn” is given, he sallies forth.

He takes it to water at the front line,

and fate’s pools return it dripping death and blood.

May God reward the fighters who encountered death on that day,

a noble day, a gallant day,

A day of sweet report and noble character,

the voices of men raised in battlecries—

I speak of the tribe of Rabīʿah,

brave and mighty when it meets battalions.

9.9

ʿAlī recited:

I see this world has many ills,

its dweller sickens, then he dies.

Good friends meet then separate—

but short of death, all this is small.

I lose a friend and then one more,

sure proof that none on Earth abide.

9.10

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr al-Tustarī reported to me, with a license to transmit the report, saying: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalīl reported to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ibrāhīm recounted to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rajāʾ recounted to us, saying: Hārūn ibn Muḥammad recounted to us, saying: Qaʿnab ibn al-Muḥriz recounted to us, saying: Al-Aṣmaʿī recounted to us, saying: Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ al-Muqriʾ, recounted to us, saying: Al-Dhayyāl ibn Ḥarmalah recounted to me, saying:

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib would go morning and evening to the messenger’s grave, weep, heartbroken, and exclaim, “O messenger of God! How beautiful is forbearance, except in your loss! How ugly is weeping, except over you!” Then he would recite:

My eyes brim over when misfortunes descend,

but the real reason for my tears is you.

Whenever I remember that you are gone,

my eyes overflow and tears come pouring again.

Then he would place his face on the grave, and rub it until it was covered in earth. He would weep and lament and recount the difficulties that had assailed him after Muḥammad’s death, and recite:

One who inhales the fragrance of Muḥammad’s grave

inhales musk and ambergris forever.

I have been burdened with hardships;

if the day was likewise burdened, it would turn into night.

9.11

Abū ʿAbd Allāh also reported to me, saying: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd reported to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Jawharī recounted to us, saying: Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā reported to us, from al-Aṣmaʿī, from Salamah ibn Bilāl, from Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbī, saying:

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib said to a man whom he wanted to warn against another’s company:

Do not befriend the fool.

Beware of him, beware!

Many a fool has led into death

the wise man who took him as brother.

The measure of a man

is the man he walks with.

Each entity finds in another such,

its true measure and like.

When the two meet, one heart finds in the other

the proof he seeks.

The eye need not look into the eye

when lips have spoken.

9.12

Al-Tustarī also recounted the following report to me, with a license to transmit, saying: Abū l-Faḍl Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ziyād al-Qarqūbī reported to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Jārūd al-Raqqī reported to us, saying: Sulaymān ibn Sayf reported to us, saying: Al-Aṣmaʿī reported to us, from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Jarīr, from his father, from al-Aḥnaf ibn Qays, saying:

I entered the presence of the commander of the faithful, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, while he was praying the noon prayer, and said: O commander of the faithful, how long will you strive like this, striving at night and in the daytime! He gestured that I should sit. When he had finished the prayer, he said: Listen and understand. Then he recited:

Bear the hardships of morning journeys patiently,

and set out at daybreak in search of your desire.

Do not give up. Do not let setbacks grieve you.

Weakness and vexation destroy any chance of victory.

My experience comes from the passage of days,

I’ve seen that forbearance brings the best outcome.

One who strives to achieve a goal,

with forbearance, achieves success.

9.13

He also reported to me, saying: the following verses by the commander of the faithful, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, were recited to us:

I turn a deaf ear to words that would rouse me to anger;

I am restrained, for restraint is worthier of me.

I leave off speaking even sweet words,

to guard against being answered by offensive ones.

If I bring upon myself the quarrel of an impetuous fool,

then I am a fool.

Do not be deceived by men’s appearance,

though ornamented or duplicitiously charming.

Many a youth stuns with his looks,

but has several tongues and numerous faces.

You see him sleeping when it is time for virtuous deeds,

and fully awake for sordid doings.

9.14

Al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Qammāḥ reported to us, saying: Al-Ḥasan ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ḍarrāb reported to us, saying: ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar recounted to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Anbārī recounted to me, saying: Muḥammad ibn Sahl recounted to us, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Balawī recounted to us, saying: ʿUmārah ibn Yazīd recounted to us, saying: Mālik recounted to us, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿd, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said:

I heard ʿAlī recite the following verses, as the messenger of God listened:

I am Muḥammad’s brother. My lineage is incontestable:

I was brought up with him; his two grandsons are my sons;

My grandfather and his grandfather are one;

and Fāṭimah is my wife. All true.

I believed in him when the world

was in the throes of error, polytheism, and adversity.

All praise and gratitude are due to God. He has no partner.

He is kind to his servants, and eternal, without end.

You have spoken true, ʿAlī, the prophet responded.

God be praised!
With his help, we have reached the end of the Treasury.
All praise is due to him for his immeasurable favors.
May God shower his blessings upon our leader, his prophet Muḥammad,
and upon Muḥammad’s pure progeny. Peace upon them all.
God is our sufficiency. He is the best guardian.