Imam Ali’s View on Significance of Ties with Kinship

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Social interactions are very important in every society and Imam Ali (AS), as a character who is realistic in his approach to society stresses not abandoning one’s kinship, relatives and tribes.

This is according to Bakhshali Ghanbari, a Nahj al-Balagha researcher, who discussed the topic of social ethics from the viewpoint of Nahj al-Balagha in a series of lectures. Here are excerpts from the 9^th session:

Imam Ali’s (AS) advice on not abandoning one’s kinship, relatives and tribes, is something that has been stressed for long but the Commander of the Faithful (AS) has expressed it in a new way.

Imam (AS) offers a few arguments in this regard. If you cut ties with your relatives and tribe, you cut one of their hands while many hands have been severed from you: the hands of all members of the tribe.

There is an interesting point mentioned in Sermon 162 of Nahj al-Balagha. A person asks a questions and Imam Ali (AS) says his question is not rational but he will answer it for two reasons, first because the person has a right to ask questions and, second, because he was a relative of Imam Ali (AS). So being a relative creates rights and responsibilities. Islam is not a religion that abandons issues related to kinship and one’s relatives.

Now look at Sermon 23 of Nahj al-Balagha. Imam (AS) says in this sermon: “O people! Surely no one (even though he may be rich) can do without his kinsmen, and their support by hands or tongues. They alone are his support from rear and can ward off from him his troubles, and they are the most kind to him when tribulations befall him. The good memory of a man that Allah retains among people is better than the property which others inherit from him.”

So these ties help to strengthen the society and develop social ethics. In another sermon of Nahj al-Balagha, Imam (AS) underlines avoiding scattering and discord, because if one gets separated from his kinsmen and tribe would be like a sheep separated from the herd in desert. It will certainly be hunted by a wolf.

Thus, Imam (AS) encourages us to strengthen social ties and support one another in two domains, one in the domain of family, tribe and relatives and the other in the national domain.

Imam (AS) considers both of them and stresses the need to support one another.