The Lost Jewel – Rediscovering Hazrat Ali’s Letter

This is a fascinating story.

Pakistan’s premier female poet Fahmida Riaz, read a letter by the fourth Caliph, Hazrat Ali while browsing through a translation of Nahaj ul Balagha. Today via email, she narrated how she was “so touched, and felt so angry for not knowing about it all my life, because really no one talks about the real jewels of Muslim history,they would rather conceal it from one generation after another”. She took notes from the ancient text and recently quoted it in her paper presented at an Urdu Conference held at Heidelberg, Germany.

On her current sojourn in the USA, she showed this text to Dr. Patricia Sharpe who was impressed enough to put it on her website under the title GOOD GOVERNANCE EARLY MUSLIM STYLE.

In her email Fahmida writes further that “Another American friend in Santa Fe is writing a book for the National Geographic about the achievements of Muslim thinkers and men of the sciences and letters. I showed him the text and he has asked me to forward it to him so that he may include it in his book. ‘The Americans should know about it ,’ he wrote. I have sent him the text, sighing to myself, and so should the Muslims.

Related story:

Hazrat Ali’s letter on governance and citizenship

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