100 sayings of Imam Muhammad b. Jafer As-Sadiq (A.S.)

Part 1

By: Saira Hussain

Rabi-ul Awwal 17 is the birth anniversary of holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SAWW) and his sixth infallible descendant Hazrat Imam Jafer As-Sadiq (AS). Here is a little collection of some maxims of the Imam (AS):

1- He who treats people kindly will be accepted as arbiter.

2- To trust everybody in times of injustice and cheating is disability.

3- If problems are added to each other, they will give birth to relief.

4- To recognize the actuality of your friend, you should enrage him. If he keeps up his friendship, he is true friend lest, he is false.

5- Do not appreciate one's affection before you enrage him three times.

6- Do not trust your friend perfectly, because the knockdown of the trustful is incurable.

7- Islam is a definite rank. Faith is one rank higher than Islam. Conviction is one rank higher than faith. People have been given a rank lower than conviction.

8- To remove a mountain is easier than removing faith.

9- Beware of joking, because it causes rancor and drives into malice. Joking is the lesser revilement.

10- The desire for the worldly pleasures causes grief and sadness. Abstinence from the worldly pleasures brings about the rest of both heart and body.

11- Life is to rent a house and buy bread.

12- He who gains oppression is not gaining welfare. He who mistreats people should not complain when people mistreat him.

13- In homelands, exchanging visits is the means of association. In travel, correspondence is the means of association.

14- A believer is not perfectly virtuous unless he enjoys three characters-- knowledgeability of the religious affairs, moderation in living, and steadfastness against misfortunes.

15- An actual believer is that whose sexual appetite does not overcome him and whose stomach does not shame him.

16- A twenty-year friendship is kinship.

17- Favors should be done only to the highborn or the religious. Those who show gratitude are very few.

18- Enjoining good and forbidding evil should be practiced with a faithful believer that he would learn a lesson, or an ignorant that he would earn. Enjoining good and forbidding evil become surely worthless when they are applied to the powerful tyrants.

19- Those who enjoin good and forbid evil should enjoy three characters: they should be aware of the matters that they enjoin and the matters that they forbid,fair in the matters that they enjoin and the matters that they forbid, and lenient in the matters that they enjoin and the matters that they forbid.

20- He who suffers a misfortune due to obtruding upon an unjust ruler will be neither rewarded nor endowed with patience.

21- As some people showed ingratitude for Allah's graces, He changed the graces into crises. As other people showed steadfastness against the misfortunes that inflicted them, Allah changed the misfortunes into graces.

22- The prosperity of coexistence and association are three thirds: two thirds are acumen and one is overlooking.

23- Revenging on the pauper is extremely ugly.

24- Imam As-Sadiq(A.S.) was asked about personality, he answered: Personality stands for that Allah should not see you in situations against which He warned, and miss you in situations of which He ordered.

25- Thank him who did you favor, and confer upon him who thanked you. Graces that are shown gratitude will not be removed while those that are shown ingratitude will not persist. Thanks increase the graces and saves against poverty.

Other Links:

Prophet Muhammad’s Hadith (17)

Prophet Muhammad’s Hadith (18)

Prophet Muhammad’s Hadith (19)