The word of the Sayyid al-Sādāt, Imām ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. Ramaḍān 40/January 661), has been described as greater than the speech of Man and below the speech of God. It is the juncture between the earthly and the divine. His word reflects the hues of heaven and for more than a millennium it has given guidance to countless individuals.

The word of Imām ʿAlī has been paramount in shaping the nature of the Arabic language. Again and again, the great Arabic lexicons, such as Lisān al-ʿArab and Tāj al-ʿArūs refer back to the word of Imām ʿAlī. In particular, they include complex phrases and usages, be they of a grammatical or idiomatic nature, which can be traced back to the Nahj al-Balāghah.

The meaning and imagery, metre and structure, rhyme and flow, immediacy and effect, of the word of Imām ʿAlī has no equal in human speech in the Arabic language.

The word of Imām ʿAlī is profoundly important for the study and understanding of Islam and it is a principal source for the spiritual and intellectual heritage thereof. In his own day and age his speech stood out from that of his peers, as it has from all and any examples of the Arabic language since. Imām ʿAlī alluded to the superiority of his word, describing himself as a Prince of Speech. Indeed, his word unites Sapientia and Eloquentia and is a beautiful exemplar of the Arabic language.

The Nahj al-Balāghah is a paramount source for the word of Imām ʿAlī.

The Nahj al-Balāghah consists of three parts.

The first part contains 239 orations, sermons, brief speeches and supplications.

The second part contains 79 epistles.

The third part contains 472 aphorisms.

The orations and sermons expound on many subjects, most importantly taʿlīm and irshād (instruction and guidance), mawʿiẓah and tanbīh (exhortation and admonition), zuhd and dunyā (asceticism and the world), ilāhiyyāt and nubuwwah (theology and prophethood).

The epistles were largely composed during the period of his caliphate and are concerned with providing guidance and advice to his deputies and governors, regarding affairs of the state and the army, and his correspondence with various personalities, friend and foe, but they also include admonition and instruction on a host of topics and, last but not least, his testament.

Similarly, the aphorisms deal with a wide variety of matters and have been described succinctly as containing ‘An Ocean of Sapientia’.

The majestic dimensions of Imām ʿAlī’s language can be seen in the first oration in the Nahj al-Balāghah, which sets the tone for the rest of the compilation.

The Nahj al-Balāghah was compiled by Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad, known as al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016).

Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī was born in Baghdad into a prominent Sayyid family. The lineage of the family is documented and clearly traced back to the seventh Imām, Mūsā al-Kāẓim; his father and brother were noted personalities, jurists and scholars of the Shīʿī Ithnā ʿAsharī Imāmī confession.

His father, Abū Aḥmad Ḥusayn b. Mūsā (d. 400/1009), was the first Imāmī Shīʿī jurist to hold the office of naqīb. He was also in charge of the dīwān al-maẓālim and had responsibility for the welfare of the pilgrims to the Kaʿbah. After his death, the office of naqīb was held in succession by his sons, first by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī and then al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā.

His brother, al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), wrote extensively, including theological works such as al-Shāfī fī al-imāmah and works of jurisprudence such as al-Dharīʿah fī uṣūl al-sharʿīah. He established and financed a college in Baghdad known as the Dār al-ʿIlm which had a library of some 80,000 works.

Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī himself studied with the leading scholars of his day and his own students went on to become distinguished scholars of their time. His learned and literary works are extant and have been widely published.

Al-Sharīf al-Raḍī was a luminary of Islamic scholarship and a man of faith and practice. He was deeply interested in many learned disciplines, including the study of literature and language.

In the centuries prior to the compilation of the Nahj al-Balāghah, many other compilations had been made of the word of Imām ʿAlī. Scholarly endeavour has established that there were some sixty-one authors who compiled or quoted the word of Imām ʿAlī before the time of al-Sharīf al-Raḍī and it may be that research will uncover more examples yet.

In the milieu of al-Sharīf al-Raḍī many works on the word of Imām ʿAlī were extant, which were well known and widely quoted, and certain orations were known by their given names. Undoubtedly, al-Sharīf al-Raḍī had access to these and other sources in the great libraries of the day. Of these named orations, the following are included in the Nahj al-Balāghah, for example al-Shiqshiqiyyah, al-Gharrāʾ, al-Ashbāḥ and al-Qāṣiʿah.

During the millennium since the compilation of the Nahj al-Balāghah, it has received great acclaim. Each generation of scholars of Arabic language and literature, religion and thought, has engaged extensively with its hermeneutics and contents, and it has been and still is the focus of numerous multi-volume works, of which 370 titles are known. These works have become authorities and primary sources in their own right.

The field of Nahj al-Balāghah studies is a recognised and well-established tradition in the Islamic world, but hitherto no serious attention has been given to this vast field of study in western academic circles.

The study and research of Dr Sayyid Amjad Shah Naqavi on the Nahj al-Balāghah, over the last decade or so, aims to initiate the field of Nahj al-Balāghah studies by presenting an authoritative direct translation of the Arabic text into English. This shall be a precise literary translation with annotation.

Source: shiahinstitue