[ Shurayh bin Haarith had been holding an important post during the previous regimes. Imam
Ali (a) had also appointed him as a Qadhi (Chief Judge) of Kufa. It was brought to the notice
of Imam Ali (a) that he had purchased a house for himself in the city (rather a costly and
expensive house, perhaps more expensive and luxurious than his status demanded and that too
rather at a cheaper price).
Imam Ali (a) called him and asked of him: "I am given to understand that you have purchased
this house for eighty dinars and a sales deed has also been completed regularizing it with
signatures of witnesses".
Shurayh replied, "O Amir al-Mu'minin this is a fact". Hearing this Imam Ali (a) felt annoyed
and said to him: "Shurayh be warned that a thing (death) will come to you; it will not take any
notice of this sales deed nor will it accept the testimony of the witnesses but it will take you
out of this house alone and unattended and will drag you to your grave.
And before such a thing happens, you must think well over the fact whether you have
purchased this house with the money which does not belong to you but to somebody else and
whether the purchase price was acquired with foul means or it was an ill-gotten wealth, which
met its cost, if it was so, then remember that you will part (through death) with this house and
in the bargain you will lose your place in Paradise.
If you had come to me prior to this transaction I would have drafted such a sales deed for you
that you would not have cared to purchase this property even for a dirham. You know what
the transfer deed would have been like, it would have been phrased in the following words: ]
A humble and powerless creature has purchased this house from another mortal being, its
boundaries are as follows: On one side it is bounded by calamities and disasters, on the other
side with disappointments and sorrows, on the third side its borders are covered with
inordinate and excessive desires ending in failures and on the fourth side it adjoins the
misleading and captivating allurements of Satan, and the door of this house opens towards
this fourth side.
A man leading his life under the merciless grip of intemperate and disorderly desires has
purchased this house from another person who is being relentlessly pursued by death. And for
the purchase price he has bargained the glory of an honourably contented and respectable way
of living against the detestable life of submitting to every form of humiliation for profits and
pleasures. The buyer had not realized what sorrows and degradations he was purchasing and
what he was paying in by way of the cost.
His delivery now lies in the hands of One Who throws the bodies of kings into dust and
overthrows their empires, Who ends the lives of despots and Who has brought to an end the
dominions of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome and Himyars, kings of Yemen, Who had destroyed
the wealth, power and glory of all those individuals who had amassed wealth, gathered
property, built very strong and durable houses, furnished them with the choicest and most
costly furniture and surrounded them with beautiful gardens.
Those people were imagining that they and their descendants will enjoy the fruits of their
labours, though in reality everyone of the house so built or the article so collected will have to
be accounted for on the Day of Judgement, the day when people will be rewarded or punished
according to their deeds, the day on which evil doers will suffer for their vicious and wicked
ways.
Your mind will corroborate and confirm this if it is kept free from intemperate ambitions,
from lust for alluring things, from sensuality and from vicious affections and attachments
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