Imam Ali (a.s.) A Beacon of Courage
By Sulaiman Kattani, translated by I. K. A. Howard

(Continued)
The Birth of the Message
What is the concern of those who come in group after group? Do you think that the Word has captivated them? The Word was spoken only to be met with contempt and mockery as if it was idle talk. It was regarded worthy only of being rejected and suppressed as if it was blasphemy.

Black night was only a veil by which two scattered emigrations might be covered as if they were acts of theft which secretly skulked away.

To what are they coming while woe and exile are dragged equally across the speaker of the Word and the one who accepts it? What is the value of the Word by which a man may be taunted into isolation? When did Mount Hira' become the Ka"ba of the Arabs and of Mecca and Medina? How is such impudence possible from a cave? Who indeed are these men who are coming? When was it possible for the youth of the people to look down on the chiefs?

The well of Badr witnessed the first battle between rulers and ruled. In it the value of the Word was established between the ruler who began to be worried about his destiny and the ruled who began to display enthusiasm for his destiny, between a group who saw in the continuation of their state a perpetuity of their praise and a perpetuity of their well-being and a group who had come to feel a new firebrand which would remove temporary injustice and persistent humiliation from their backs.

The Battle of Uhud did not end without the Word returning more strongly and more fiercely unyielding. Indeed it held fast to its meaning just as proof holds fast to logic. The weak cling on to a new hope just as a drowning man clings on to a rope of rescue. Indeed the Word was winged with goodness and truth; it radiated justice and beauty and it revealed visions adorned with ultimate reason and extended by imagination to destinations which captivate souls through the scope of their high ideals.

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