1 Q Baqarah 2:269.
2 Q Shūrā 42:11.
3 These marks are missing from our manuscripts.
4 This is a pun on the word fāḥishah, which has both the specific connotation of adultery and the general meaning of abomination.
5 Q Hūd 11:45 and Tīn 95:8.
6 Or: Whosoever associates with the learned gains dignity, and whosoever associates with the base becomes despicable.
7 It is reported that the prophet would tie a belt tightly around his waist to alleviate pangs of hunger; some add that he would put stones in it. See e.g. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, report no. 2040; Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad 3:44.
8 The Qurʾan narrates that when Moses left Egypt, and crossed the desert to arrive at the Midian oasis, he found Jethro’s daughters attempting to water their flocks, and he helped them. Then he went to rest in the shade, and said, «My lord, I am in need of whatever good you send down to me.» (Q Qaṣaṣ 28:24). The exegetes add that Moses was so emaciated from his long journey that the green color of the desert plants he had been eating could be seen through the skin of his stomach. (See al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān.)
9 Q Naml 27:44 and Qaṣaṣ 28:16.
10 Q Hūd 11:47.
11 Q Anbiyāʾ 21:87.
12 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:185.
13 Q Muʾminūn 23:86.
14 Q Kahf 18:45.
15 Q Najm 53:31.
16 Q Hūd 11:15–16.
17 Q Ḥadīd 57:20.
18 Grammatically modified version of Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:128–9.
19 Q Fuṣṣilat 41:15.
20 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:58.
21 Q Ṭā Hā 20:111.
22 Q Muʾminūn 23:100.
23 Grammatically modified version of Q Infiṭār 82:4.
24 Q ʿĀdiyāt 100:10.
25 Slightly modified version of Q Yūnus 10:30.
26 Q Najm 53:31.
27 It is considered virtuous to pray the dawn prayer early.
28 See Bayard Taylor, “The Wisdom of Ali,” Poems of the Orient.
29 Q Nisāʾ 4:78.
30 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:154.
31 Q Luqmān 31:17.
32 Referring to the prophet Muḥammad.
33 Q Aḥzāb 33:21.
34 Modified version of Q Zumar 39:47, and grammatically modified version of Aʿrāf 7:95.
35 Vocalizing “Bikālī” following Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, Sharḥ Nahj al-balāghah 10:76–77.
36 This is the middle of the lunar month of Shaʿbān, thus a night with a full moon, and one considered particularly holy, to be dedicated to prayer.
37 Q Naḥl 16:128.
38 Q Ibrāhīm 14:34.
39 In the Arabic, the answers rhyme with the questions.
40 Mālik is the name of the gatekeeping angel of hell.
41 Q Ḥajj 22:11 and Zumar 39:15.
42 I.e. there are only some things he is permitted to know about the antichrist. The meaning “God knows where you will stand on the day of judgment” is also possible.
43 Q Nāziʿāt 79:34.
44 Q Anʿām 6:158.
45 Q Nūḥ 71:10–12.
46 These verses are: «Everything in the heavens and the earth extols God; he is the mighty, the wise. The kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs to him, he gives life and he gives death, and he has power over all things. He is the first and the last, the manifest and the hidden, and he has knowledge of all things. He is the one who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then he sat upon the throne; he knows what enters into the earth and what comes out of it; what descends from the sky and what rises up to it; he is with you wherever you may go; and God sees all that you do. His is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and all things return to him. He makes the night give way to day, he makes the day give way to night, and he knows all that is in your hearts.» Q Ḥadīd 57:1–6.
47 These verses are: «He knows the unseen and the visible, he is the merciful and the compassionate. He is God other than whom there is no god, the king, the holy, peace, the preserver, the guardian, the almighty, the subjugator, the exalted—glorified be he above the partners they ascribe unto him. He is God, the creator, the originator, the one who gives shape. His are the most beautiful names, and he is the almighty, the wise.» Q Ḥashr 59:22–24.
48 Modified version of Q Taghābun 64:9.
49 Modified version of Q Taḥrīm 66:8.
50 Echoes Q ʿAnkabūt 29:41.
51 Modified version of Q Kahf 18:45.
52 The “Heavenly House” (al-bayt al-maʿmūr), lit. “the much-frequented house,” is considered to be the heavenly prototype for the Kaʿbah.
53 Q Aʿrāf 7:171.
54 In al-Ṣaḥifah al-Sajjādiyyah, this prayer is ascribed to ʿAlī’s eponymous grandson, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, better known as Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. See William Chittick, The Psalms of Islam, no. 43, pp. 140–42.
55 Q Anbiyāʾ 21:101.
56 The Arabic text of the gong’s “words” is rhythmic, to match what would be the beats of the gong. The rhythm is manifest in a set of equal beats (dong dong dong dong, dong dong dong dong / dong dong dong dong, dong dong dong dong); eight long syllables per hemistich, which is not a bona fide poetic meter in the Arabic Khalīlian system. The lines rhyme in a muzdawijah fashion, in the pattern xx, yy, zz. My translation follows approximately the same beat as the Arabic, and also applies an ad hoc loose rhyme.
57 I.e. death.
58 A reference to Q Aʿrāf 7:179 and Furqān 25:44.
59 Echoes Q ʿAnkabūt 29:41.
60 Modified version of Q Kahf 18:45.
61 Grammatically modified version of Q Muʾminūn 23:74.
62 Q Dhāriyāt 51:11.
63 Lit. “pharaohs.”
64 Q Furqān 25:63.
65 Q Muʾminūn 23:11.
66 Christians, Jews, Sabians, and others. See “protected peoples” in the Glossary.
67 Q Baqarah 2:196, 211, Āl ʿImrān 3:11, Māʾidah 5:2, and many other places. The two epithets occur together in 5:98.
68 Q Yūnus 10:107 and many other places.
69 It is virtuous to preface any kind of prayer with blessings on the prophet (ṣalawāt); the belief is that since God will certainly respond to the prayer asking him to bless the prophet, he will surely answer any prayers that are offered with it.
70 According to Ibn Saʿd (s.v. dhikr al-adhān), this call to gather was the original call to prayer. See Qutbuddin, “Khuṭba,” p. 208, for details.
71 Notice the pun: the word used for yellow here is muzabraq, a derivative of whose root, zibriqān, the full moon, is perhaps evoked retroactively with the next phrase comparing ʿAlī to the full moon using the more common word badr.
72 These poems were composed after the Battle of Uḥud in 3/625.
73 In addition to “jackal,” thaʿlab also means “spear point.” Here, the word puns on both meanings: the jackal (one of the disbelievers) killing the lion (Muṣʿab), and the spear-point piercing his body.
74 ʿAlī slew ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wadd in the Battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq), also called the Battle of the Confederates (al-Aḥzāb), in which the Meccans and their allies attacked Muḥammad in Medina 5/627.
75 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (20:279), explains that the three who lined up against Islam were the two pagan tribes of Quraysh and Ghaṭafān, and the Medinan Jewish tribe of Qurayẓah. The one “taken out” was Quraysh, when ʿAlī slew ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wadd and Nawfal ibn ʿAbdallāh. Al-Jubūrī, Dīwān ʿAlī (p. 189, note * [sic]), explains it differently, saying three individuals lined up against Islam, namely ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wadd, who was killed, and two others, who escaped.
76 A reference to the prophet’s expulsion of the Jewish tribe of al-Naḍīr from Medina in 3/625.
77 Likely composed following the Battle of Badr in 2/624.
78 Among the Qurʾan’s many designations for itself is the Book of Demarcation (al-Furqān), something that explains the difference between right and wrong.
79 The reference is unclear.
80 According to al-Kaydarī, ʿAlī recited this verse after ordering the burning of a group who persisted in ascribing divinity to him (Dīwān ʿAlī, pp. 231–32).
81 Likely composed following the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 36/657.
82 Al-Khwārizmī has a different chain of transmission.
83 The One Hundred Proverbs may be part of the lost sections of Ibn Abī Ṭāhir’s literary anthology al-Manẓūm wa-l-manthūr. I thank Shawkat Toorawa this suggestion.
84 The veil is the body; removing the veil is a reference to death.
85 This is one of the more cryptic utterances of the 100 Proverbs. Literally it reads “As for him whose lower parts are weak, his higher parts will be hard,” which has been interpreted in radically different ways. My translation follows the anonymous commentary of the Tokyo MS, f. 462. In contrast, Waṭwāṭ (Maṭlūb kull ṭālib, p. 41) says: “Whosoever is not aided by lesser folk (al-ṣighār), will be crushed by powerful ones (al-kibār).” Offering yet another interpretation, al-Baḥrānī (Sharḥ, pp. 169–70) says: “Whosoever has soft buttocks (i.e. performs acts of homosexuality) will have a rough mouth (i.e. no shame).”
86 Al-Waṭwāt (Maṭlūb kull ṭālib, p. 57) explains this as follows: “One who is too soft is disrespected by his subordinates and protégés, and they do not obey or esteem him.” Al-Baḥrānī (Sharḥ, pp. 91–93) has a different interpretation: “If you are humble and kind, you will be strong and have many supporters.”