the First Sermon of Nahj al-Balagha – Abdur Rahman’s Corner
Peace, one and all…
The Nahj al-Balagha (or ‘Path of Eloquence’) is a collection of sermons, letters and sayings of Imam Ali (as), from within the Shi’a tradition. In honour of his shahadat, this lover of Imam Ali wanted to share the opening section of its profound first sermon. This was beautifully translated by Reza Shah Kazemi:
Praise be to God, whose laudation those who speak cannot deliver, whose graces those who count cannot number, whose rightful due those who strive cannot render; He who cannot be grasped by far reaching aspirations, nor fathomed by profound intuitions; He whose attribute has no binding limitation, no existing description, no time appointed, no term extended. Through His power He originated all created things, and through His mercy He diffused the comforting winds; and He entrenched with rocky pillars His swaying earth. Foremost in religion is knowledge of Him, and the perfection of this knowledge is believing in Him, and the perfection of this belief is affirming His oneness, and the perfection of this affirmation is to purify one’s devotion to Him, and the perfection of this purification is to divest Him of all attributes—because of the testimony of every attribute that it is other than the object of attribution, and because of the testimony of every such object that it is other than the attribute. So whoever ascribes an attribute to God—glorified be He!—has conjoined Him [with something else], and whoever so conjoins Him has made Him twofold, and whoever makes Him twofold has fragmented Him, and whoever thus fragments Him is ignorant of Him. And whoever points to Him confines Him, and whoever confines Him counts Him;9and whoever asks ‘in what?’ encloses Him, and
whoever asks ‘upon what?’ isolates Him. Being, but not by way of any becoming; existing, but not from having been non-existent; with every thing, but not through association; and other than every thing, but not through separation; acting, but not through movements and instruments; seeing, even when nothing of His creation was to be seen; solitary, even when there was none whose intimacy might be sought or whose absence might be missed.
Quoted in Reza Shah Kazemi, Justice and Remembrance
