Let us start this review with a conflict, I think, all readers face, whether early readers or readers way down the road: that of not remembering anything about the book, despite their eloquent sense of having understood the text while reading it, just as soon as they close the book. This happens mostly in the case of nonfiction books, but some fictions too are just as hard to instill in our minds.
Kazemi’s book, with the subtitle ‘Introducing the Spirituality of Imam Ali’, is an in depth yet concise study of Imam Ali (the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, the fourth and last of righteous caliphs of Islam, and the first of twelve Imams of the Shia sect) and his well revered, well known, and well quoted wisdom and spirituality that remains unmatched in the Islamic world, only secondary to Prophet Muhammad himself.
Reading a text that is an expansion on the Imam Ali’s book of sermons and quotes ‘The Peak of Eloquence’ Nahj ul Balagha, is as a significant and profound an experience as it is fleeting. Therefore, I thought it is a good opportunity for me to talk about this conflict readers face, especially with reading nonfiction, within this review.
Reading Kazemi’s book, I, more than once, felt elated, in my higher consciousness, near to understanding something profound, and a feeling of having almost solved the mystery of this world – but alas, it was all for too short a period. Once outside the book, as I began to reflect on what I had read, except the angry frustration and harsh guilt, almost nothing came to mind, or at least nothing that I could myself comprehend so as to able to share within our sit-ups with friends.
The way out of this debilitating conflict, debilitating because the frustration of not having evidential proof of learning can force a reader to stop reading such difficult books at all, is to read for the reading’s sake only, and have faith that whatever I am reading, despite the facts, is helping me learn, grow, and understand the subject. So, even if you don’t have anything articulate to share, you always have something inarticulate in your mind to solve and comprehend over time. Keep reading.
With this resolution, I was able to not only finish Kazemi’s brilliant book, but also enjoy the process of reading it for the reading’s sake. Kazemi’s book, as I mentioned, is an extension of Nahj ul Balagha but only of those parts of Imam Ali’s book that concerns with the topics of Justice and Remembrance.
‘To place everything thing in its place’ is Imam Ali’s definition of justice, and Kazemi elaborates deeply on this simple definition through many of Ali’s sermons and letters. Remembrance through chanting about God and His attributes, Zikr ‘Allah, is Kazemi’s second topic on which he talks extensively in lights Imam Ali’s sayings.
However, it isn’t a unilateral study of Ali’s spirituality, Kazemi corelates Plato’s philosophy of justice and society simultaneously with Imam Ali’s wisdom. Moreover, the foundational Sufis like Ibn Arabi and Al Ghazali are also mentioned to build and relate Ali’s sayings with the themes of Justice and Remembrance.
Yet what remains the aim of this deep, elusive, mystic, and at
times joyous book isn’t expanding on Ali’s wisdom, but rather to reach to God,
the One, the Real, through Ali’s transcendental wisdom and understanding about
Him. Kazemi hasn’t only achieved in revealing why Ali is so revered for his
wisdom, but has also succeeded in writing an excellent book about the concept
of union with God Himself – what’s asked of you is patience and an empty mind.
Ratings: 4/5 **** May 11, 2021_