Imam Ali ΄s Studies
Year:2015 | Volume:5 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

Throughout history and in the contemporary world in particular, communications, as a social capital, has gained importance alongside natural, technological and human capitals. To inspire motivation and growth in employees and workers to realize organizational goals, every manager should therefore try to establish positive two-way communications in order to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding, satisfaction and harmonious relationships, and try to encourage mutual understanding and satisfaction among them.Islam is the gist of all revealed religions, for which all prophets of God have worked. The religion brought God’s Favors on humans to their fullest by the verse “This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion” (Al-Ma’idah: 3). However, the religion went through distortions and adverse events until Imam Ali’s rule brought it back to its original condition. Like every rule, Imam Ali’s rule needed officials and managers who were able to bring satisfaction among people using effective communicative skills, and thereby assist the government in reaching its goals by effective mutual relationships. This paper thus looks at different aspects of communication and communicative skills to then explore their role in Imam Ali’s rule.

Some hadith sources contain reports about women’s deficiency of ‘aql (reason). Such reports, plus inappropriate treatment towards women by some men in Islamic societies, allow opponents of Islam to take advantage of this opportunity to claim that Islamic rules are against women. Rigorous re-examination of meanings of the words in such reports will resolve disputes over Islam and women’s rights. Most scholars agree that the word naqs means limit, and that ‘aql here refers to practical or social reason. However, the word naqs here denotes deficiency, and ‘aql means memory. Due to certain physical and mental properties, women are likely to miss details of an event. Women’s sight is weaker than men’s, while sight influences storage of event details in memory. Moreover, menstruation and menopause cause certain disorders in women, including depression and lack of focus in women, which, again, have weakening impacts on women’s memory.

Visualization is a way through which the speaker tries to communicate his mental concepts and ideas to the audience, as if portraying an image of that concept for them. Visualization is extensively used in Imam Ali’s words for visualizing and explaining different concepts. Images used in Imam Ali’s words can be classified into different types based on the rhetorical figures used for portraying them, the way they are used, the elements forming them and their structure, function, theme and content. These image types include linguistic, virtual, partial, singular, contextual, stationary, mobile, affirmative, collaborative, and images of surface, depth, etc. All these images portray sheer truth, and this is a quality in Imam Ali’s words: In his words, the image serves the reality.

The present paper introduces examples of Prophet Muhammad’s commands designating Imam Ali as his successor and criticizes the thesis which claims that the Prophet gave no commands or made no indications as to Imam Ali succeeding him. The paper shows the contradictions between this thesis and Islamic hadiths and reports, as well as with historical facts. Denying the Prophet’s choice over his successorship is a view held by those who argue that the Prophet deliberately refrained from designating a successor for himself to let his companions (sahabah) choose the future of the people. However, study of wills left by Islamic caliphs reveals that, with few exeptions, successors of caliphs were chosen based on the wills during Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman Caliphates. In this thesis, therefore, the Prophet is the only exception to having the right to choose his successor.

Every society needs labor and activity of its people and leaders in order to survive. Labor is a fundamental need which has existed since ancient times and whose importance has increased ever since. Labor is a national capital and can foster development of civilizations. Imam Ali has explained basics and principles of labor and hard work in his priceless book, Nahj al-Balaghah. Imam Ali worked hard in all his life for improvement of the society, and in particular during his reign as caliph.This study adopts a descriptive method and uses information from available books, in particular Nahj al-Balaghah, and aims to explore the place of labor, division of labor and different aspects of labor based on teachings of Nahj al-Balaghah and thereby suggest a strategy for providing healthy and productive labor in today’s societies. According to the findings, labor and division of labor have an important place in the society and play an effective role in the survival, balance, dynamism, livelihood and productivity of all societies. The study also draws on ideas of other thinkers on definition of labor, place of labor, division of labor, advantages and reasons of division of labor, impacts of division of labor, etc. to further expand the discussion.

Imam Ali chose Kufa as the base of Caliphate in 35 AH/655 AD. Since the newly established city with a totally emigrated population reflected a variety of political, social and cultural viewpoints, events of Kufa both shows the situation facing Imam Ali in that period and helps understanding his words and sayings. Studying circumstances of Kufa during reign of Imam Ali as the social and cultural context of his words will therefore guide us to discovering the reasons of the diversity in his words about people of Kufa and help us better understand what he said.This paper aims to explore characteristics and traits of people of Kufa as described by Imam Ali in Nahj al-Balaghah. Imam Ali has praised them in some occasions and blamed them in some other. This paradox in Imam’s words in fact reflects the mixed stances taken by the people toward events of the time. The present paper intends to explore the reasons of this diversity in Imams words by considering the social, political and cultural circumstances of the time.