Ali Shariati

He was the absolute ruler of a country and he ate barley bread. He would sit with the poor upon the ground at their meal just like a humble slave. He would ride a donkey bareback and, most of the time, he would sit another person behind him.

This method of ruling by the ruler was to show the difference between his regime and the monarchic regimes of Iran and the Roman Empire. The people could see with their own eyes that a new regime and a young organization had come into being, between two aristocratic bases, in which there was no difference between ruler and ruled, commander and commanded, master and slave, and that all stood in one rank upon the threshold of God and justice.

When the regime of 'Uthman dominated Islam, the humiliated working masses and the helpless were suppressed under the heels of usurers, slave merchants, the wealthy, and aristocrats who were coming and going in the courts of 'Uthman and Mu'awiyah. Class differences and the concentration of wealth were revived; Islam, threatened with a great danger, was changed from the situation of the Prophet and the simplicity and unpretentiousness of Abu Bakr and 'Umar, who were living like average people or even like the poor and needy. Thousands of dinars were spent to build a Green Palace for the Islamic governor Mu'awiyah and a regime was established which was like a king's court.

Abu Dharr was watching these shameful scenes and because he could no longer bear it, could no longer remain silent, he rebelled, a manly and wonderful rebellion; an uprising which caused rebellion in all the Islamic lands against 'Uthman; an uprising from which the waves of enthusiasm can still be felt until the present day in the situations of human societies. Abu Dharr was trying to develop the economic and political unity of Islam and the regime of 'Uthman was reviving aristocracy. Abu Dharr believed Islam to be the refuge of the helpless, the oppressed and the humiliated people and 'Uthman, the tool of capitalism, was the bastion to preserve the interests of the usurers, the wealthy and the aristocrats.

When he was speaking of capitalism and the hoarding of wealth and he was strongly defending the wretched, and when he was turning against the aristocrats and the palace-dwellers of Damascus and Medina, he resembles an extreme socialist like Proudhon, but the truth is that Abu Dharr is one thing and Pascal and Proudhon are different. Abu Dharr knew God; from that day on, he never stopped upon God's Way; not for a moment did he weaken in thought or action. Neither does Proudhon have the purity, devotion and worship of Abu Dharr, nor does Pascal have his activity and enthusiasm. Abu Dharr had become a complete human being in the School of Islam, and this commentary alone is sufficient to demonstrate his greatness.

But this time we see that this very aristocracy-worshipper History is going to the worn tents, to the destroyed mud houses of the African slaves, to the nameless, bare-footed people of the Arabian desert, to unknown and unimportant people like Abu Dharr, a man from the Ghifar tribe, Salman, a homeless man from Iran, and Bilal, a cheap slave. History records their lives, one by one, with great greed and envy. With the highest of honors, it offers them to future generations of humanity. And it must also be asked why, and as of when, this pharaoh-seeker, royal court-dweller, History became so humble

The Islamic victories in the history of places like Rome and Iran and in the fate of expansionists like Ghengis Khan, Dara, Napoleon, and others like these 'famous brainless', are not exceptional, but restructuring an unknown desert-dweller and half-savage like Jundab ibn Junadah into an Abu Dharr Ghifari is unique in any ideology or movement. If the result of Islam was no more than educating these four or five human beings like Abu Dharr, Salman, Ammar Yasir and Bilal, it would suffice for the intellect to be amazed at the victories of Islam

Suddenly, all at once, in one of the narrow alleys of Makkah, he saw a large crowd in a corner who had tied themselves into a knot. He delivered himself there: a man alone, with an enlightened face, with a look which awakened the depths of his soul, an open and calm brow, middle-size stature, an aggressive shape, and, at the same time, inspiring kindness and affection, with a manly, hoarse voice, decisive and certain and, at the same time, sweet and full of tenderness, with profound words, a pleasing tone and more beautiful than poetry, full of fear and hope.

Anis stood before him. He did not know whether to listen to his words, to give his heart to his charisma, or to simply observe all of the beauty and kindness of his stature, look, behavior and words?

“We Willed to be gracious to those that were deprived upon the earth, and to make them leaders and to make them the heirs. “(28:3)

He was going and faith was coming. Yes. Faith comes in this way. Then he reached Makkah. A man from the Ghifar tribe, amidst the Quraysh caravan leaders and capitalists! and searching for a man, even the mentioning of the name of whom is a crime in this city. He searched the whole day through the valleys of Makkah, the bazaar and the Masjid al-Haram. He found nothing. He went to sleep that night in the Masjid al-Hararn, alone and hungry, when 'Ali, who, every night before going home, would come to the mosque and circumambulate [in accordance with the traditions of