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Page 84 of 104Kosar ghadirestan Center Nabi (S) www.ghadirestan.comIMAM ALI (S) Sunshine of Civilized IslamFreedom in Imam Ali’s ThoughtAll the politicians and the cruel powerful men usually created an atmosphere of distressamong people to frighten them in order to submit. For this purpose, they built manyhouses of detention and prisons to put the opponents in them and if someone made aprotest against such an action, he would be put to torture on a charge of rebellion. Henceno one dared to defend someone's right. But the Prophet of Islam charged the Muslimswith a duty to advise the walis and to show them the right way to realize justice if theybehaved unjustly. He said: “The best kind of jihad is saying a word of rightness before anunjust ruler.” How great it was that the Prophet of Islam had granted such free will to thepeople fourteen centuries ago, so that they could debate with the rulers. Abu-Bakr, thefirst caliph, said: “If I disobey Allah and His apostle, I have no right to govern on you andyou do not have to obey me.” One day Umar the second caliph, said: “You, people, shouldguide me to the right way if you saw me going in a wrong way.” An ordinary man stood upand said: “If you follow the curved way, we will bring you back to the straight way by thiscurved sword.” Once more Umar said: “I am the Prophet's caliph and a man of authority.You have to obey me to spread the goals of Islam.” One of present people said: “If youtold us wherefrom you have got your shirt, of course we would obey you.” During Umar’sreign no one dared to misappropriate anything of Bayt al-Mal (the treasury) because ofhis severity in practicing justice. Imam Ali (s) always enlightened the Muslims to defendtheir rights and to interfere in the state affairs. Therefore, in order to grant someprivileges to people, Imam Ali (s) ordered his officers to read the items of the constitutionof his rule before the people in the mosque to make them know their duties and the wali'sduties. Consequently the walis would not dare to rule out of the law and the people, if thewalis did something wrong, were not to obey them and were to report about theiroffences to Imam Ali. During Imam Ali’s reign no one had the right to exploit any other byforce. He wrote to the walis: “Although excavating canals and cleaning out rivers arenecessary a progressive state but you have no right to force anyone to do it unwillingly.”Imam Ali himself never forced any one to join his army even at the critical situations in hisvarious battles in spite of that they had paid homage to him and obeying him wasobligatory for them. When the wali of Medina tried to seek for some men, who fled fromMedina to join Mu’awiyah in Sham, [1] Imam Ali wrote to him: “Do not worry if somepeople did not like to remain under my just rule. Let them go wherever they like.” At the