A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons, and Teachings of 'Ali, with the One Hundred Proverbs attributed to al-Jahiz

Notes

235 235 Notes 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. 236 236 Notes 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. 237 237 Notes 47 These verses...