Imam Ali and the courage to be just

There are lives that gather reverence, and others that carry consequence. The life of Imam Ali (AS) bore both, as a lifetime unfolded cultivating spirituality and wisdom in the face of power. From the beginning, his presence unsettled settled hierarchies. Faith entered his life as choice. Justice entered as responsibility. To commemorate the wiladat of Imam Ali is to remember a man who stood at the heart of faith and carried its full gravity.

He lived beside revelation and watched a civilisation take shape. He carried the sword, the law, and the burden of leadership. His life unfolded as a sustained moral trial, where clarity demanded endurance and authority demanded humility. Justice, as he lived it, carried cost.

From his earliest years, Imam Ali stood where truth demanded courage. As a young man, he slept in the Prophet's (PBUH) bed on the night of the Hijrah, fully aware that assassins waited outside. That moment set the rhythm of his life. Justice appeared first as loyalty. Power came later. Presence preceded authority.

When power eventually came to him, it arrived amid fracture and unrest. His caliphate began in a time of deep division, when political expediency beckoned from every direction. Imam Ali chose repair through principle. He treated the public treasury as a trust rather than a prize. Wealth taken unjustly returned to its rightful place. Privileges granted through favouritism were revoked. Supporters who gathered in hope of advantage drifted away when justice demanded sacrifice. He remained anchored. Authority, in his vision, carried weight only when guided by conscience and humility

Perhaps nowhere is Imam Ali's vision clearer than in his letter to Malik al Ashtar, written upon appointing him governor of Egypt. He urges mercy over arrogance and reminds the ruler that people stand as equals in creation or brothers in faith. He cautions against counsellors driven by greed or fear, calls for closeness to ordinary people, and places care for the poor at the centre of authority. Judges must remain independent, administrators must lighten the burdens of those who generate wealth, soldiers must receive dignity and care, and governance must stay open to public grievance. A single principle runs through the letter: leadership serves, justice protects the vulnerable, and power endures through restraint exercised in conscience.

Yet beneath this public firmness lay a deeply interior spiritual life, one that grants Imam Ali an enduring intimacy with the modern reader. A single line attributed to him captures this interiority with startling honesty:

"I came to know Allah, through the breaking of determinations, change of intentions and losing of courage."

This confession reveals a faith shaped through encounter rather than inheritance. Imam Ali lived close to revelation. He witnessed the rise of a moral and political order. And yet, it was collapse rather than certainty that sharpened his awareness of God. The breaking of resolve, the reshaping of intent, even the momentary loss of courage became sites of recognition rather than failure. The statement carries no shame. It stands as a boast of faith. Recognition arrived through struggle. Clarity emerged through surrender.

Truth entered his life early. That meant every loss, every betrayal, every solitude unfolded in its presence. His life became a continuous negotiation with meaning. Within that negotiation, faith matured. His spirituality allowed questions. It allowed vulnerability. It allowed honesty before God.

This inner honesty sustained his outward justice. Imam Ali spoke of zikr (remembrance) as the polishing of the heart, the discipline that restores moral sight. Through remembrance, conscience stays alert and power retains proportion. When remembrance fades, injustice begins to feel ordinary

His wisdom flowed from clarity and a deep sense of proportion. It knew when speech served truth and when silence carried greater weight. His sayings endure because they speak to permanent human realities. He described patience as strength shaped over time and warned that power tests character more severely than adversity. His wisdom remained grounded in ordinary life, moving easily between the metaphysical and the practical. He spoke of governance and the soul in the same breath, reminding rulers that arrogance begins when power forgets its source and reminding individuals that dignity endures even as circumstances tighten. His words continue to travel across traditions and institutions because they offer orientation rather than instruction.

That wisdom also found voice beyond scholarship, flowing into music, poetry and devotion, and shaping the emotional vocabulary of South Asian Islam. In qawwali, Imam Ali appears as the gate of knowledge and the standard bearer of courage. His name rises in repetition, carrying longing, strength and love together. When the refrain calls "Man Kunto Maula", it shifts from history into allegiance to justice and spiritual fidelity. Qawwali keeps Imam Ali human and luminous at once, encountered as warrior and saint, guide and companion. His presence in these gatherings reflects how deeply his legacy entered the emotional life of faith. Wisdom, once sung, becomes shared memory, and justice, once sung, becomes aspiration.

Alongside this wisdom stands Zulfiqar, his sword, etched into collective imagination as a symbol of discernment. Its bifurcated blade came to represent the separation of truth from impulse and justice from vengeance. Accounts recall moments where Imam Ali withheld the final blow once anger entered the heart, affirming that action required inner clarity and that strength reached completion through restraint.

This is why Imam Ali continues to speak so powerfully to the present. He offers a grammar where justice is courage practised daily, authority is trust borne carefully, and faith is strong enough to survive disappointment.

To remember Imam Ali on his wiladat is to recover a demanding yet sustaining vision. One that allows questions without fear. One that places conscience above applause. One that teaches that even when plans collapse, meaning continues to unfold.

On days when hope thins, perhaps faith remains. Faith in something larger than human control. In meaning. In the quiet assurance that even as things fall apart, they remain held.

That assurance shaped the justice of Imam Ali. And it remains his most enduring inheritance.