Perhaps it may have happened to you, and if not, you may still visualize

it: someone lives on your street or in your neighbourhood for years;

you see him at least once every day and habitually nod to him and pass

1. Years pass in this manner, until, one day, accidentally, you get an opportunity

to sit down with him and to become familiar with his ideas,

views and feelings, his likes and dislikes. You are amazed at what you

have come to know about him. You never imagined or guessed that he

might be as you found him, and never thought that he was what you

later discovered him to be.

After that, whenever you see him, his face, somehow, appears to be different.

Not only this, your entire attitude towards him is altered. His personality

assumes a new meaning, a new depth and respect in your heart,

as if he were some person other than the one you thought you knew for

1. You feel as if you have discovered a new world.

My experience was similar in regard to the Nahj al-balaghah. From my

childhood years I was familiar with the name of this book, and I could

distinguish it from other books on the shelves in my father’s library.

Years later, during my studies, first at the theological school of Mashhad,

and later at Qum, when I was finishing the last stages of the preliminary

education in theology called “sutuh”, during all those days the name of

the Nahj al-balaghah was heard more often than that of any other book

after the Quran. Some of its sermons on piety I had heard so many times

that I almost remembered them by heart.