The Nahjul-Balaghah is a vast and never-ending sea of Islamic teachings and knowledge about the Origin, resurrection, revelation, angels, the non-material world, the realm of malakut, politics, teaching, training, mysticism, ethics, spiritual virtues, justice, piety, asceticism, spiritual journey, jihad, supplication, etc.

This great and invaluable book is only a small portion of what a complete human has to say; one who through his extraordinary talent, divine aid, self control, and the struggles and efforts of the prophet (pbuh), has attained all knowledge and as Ibn Abi Alhadid says, is the headspring of all knowledge and sciences, and the knowledge of the experts of all fields eventually end in him. Ibn Abbas says: The prophet of Allah (swt) said: “When I was prepared to intimately speak (munajat) with my Lord, He spoke with me and intimately spoke with me, I taught Ali everything I learned from Allah (swt), thus, Ali is the door to my knowledge.”[1] Therefore, Imam Ali (as) learned all knowledge from the prophet (pbuh) and was the treasury of divine of knowledge.[2] What exists in the Nahjul-Balaghah are merely a fraction of his sayings in which Seyyid Radiyy has selected with his own personal taste from authentic sources and classified and compiled them into what is titled the Nahjul-Balaghah.

Although this book doesn’t mention the chain of narrators for each saying, nonetheless, a great majority of the sayings in it comply with and have been adopted by Quranic concepts and at the same time, most of them have a chain of narrators in the original sources they have been selected from. For the same reason, the Nahjul-Balaghah’s scripts have been analyzed by scholars and their chains of narrators have been determined.[3] Mentioning this point might not be necessary, but the concepts touched on in it are so profound and full of meaning that: 1- They free one of really being in need of checking their chains of narrators 2- These sayings are so profound and rich in literature and eloquence and discuss matters that make it impossible to believe anyone other than the imam himself has said them. Overall, what are important are the things that benefit us in both our spiritual and material lives, and that is something the Nahjul-Balaghah thrives in; it is the content of the Nahjul-Balaghah that compels scholars to say that it is ‘the discourse of higher than man, but lower than God’.[4]

Imam Khomeini, the great mystic, says about the Nahjul-Balaghah: “And as for the Nahjul-Balaghah which is a lower level of his [Imam Ali (as)] spirit, it is to teach and train us who are sleeping in the field of egotism and the veil of selfishness….it is a collection with different dimensions the number of that in a human being or a great human society….and no matter how many societies, governments and nations come into existence, and no matter how many philosophers and thinkers and scholars emerge and dive deep into it and drown in it. Oh philosophers and possessors of wisdom! Come and scrutinize and ponder the phrases of the first sermon of this divine book and employ your high thoughts and get help from the learned and great mystics in interpreting and explaining this one sentence and try to satisfy your consciences in understanding its true meaning, … so that the scope of the insight of the ‘son of revelation’ [meaning Imam Ali (as)] will become clear to you and you learn of and admit to your and other’s shortcoming and deficiency, this is the sentence [that I am challenging you to interpret]: “مع کل شیءٍ لابمقارنةٍ و غیر کل شیءٍ لابمزایلةٍ” (He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation)[5].[6]

For further information on the viewpoints of scholars on the Nahjul-Balaghah, see: Dar Sahele Nahjul-Balagheh (Nahjul-Balagheh az Negahe Daneshmandan).