Mas'ud al-Mada'ini and Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Fazqad, both from Fadl al-Rasul, from Abu Ja'far (AS): that the companions of the Commander of the Faithful said to him: If only you would show us something by which our hearts might be set at rest, of what is in your hands of what the Messenger of God (PBUH) conveyed to you. He said: If I were to show you one of my wonders, you would fall into unbelief and say: a sorcerer, or a soothsayer! And that would be the best of what you would say. They said: O Commander of the Faithful, there is not one of us but knows that you inherited the knowledge of the Messenger of God and that it passed to you. He said: The knowledge of the Knowing One is hard, exceedingly hard; none can bear it but a nearby angel, or a messenger prophet, or a believer whose heart God has tested for faith and whom He has strengthened 'with a spirit from Him' [Qur'an 58:22]. So if you will have nothing but that I show you some of my wonders and of the knowledge that has come to me, then follow my track... (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 129)
Imam al-Baqir (AS) said: One day the companions of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) said to him: If only you would show us something of the wonders God has given you, so that our hearts might be set at rest concerning your guardianship. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: If I were to show you something of my wonders, you would fall into unbelief and say that Ali is a sorcerer or a soothsayer. And that is the best thing you would say! They said: But we all know that those wonders come from the knowledge of the Messenger of God (PBUH) that has reached you. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: The divine knowledge is hard and exceedingly hard, and none can bear it but a nearby angel, or a messenger prophet, or a servant who has been tested in faith and strengthened by a spirit from God. Nevertheless, if you insist that I show you wonders and draw aside a veil of knowledge, so be it...
(The report goes on to say that after the evening prayer Ali (AS) took a number of them with him out to the desert of Najaf, and because of the wonders they saw they all fell into unbelief and called him a sorcerer, except for two men. At that point Ali (AS) said to that company: Your hearts were diseased; now they have become unbelieving. Those two men he took back with him at midnight to the mosque of Kufa, and there he uttered an invocation with words and names that, as on the previous occasion, were familiar to all, that is, containing no strange formulas. Yet this time too something unexpected happened: all the pebbles of the mosque of Kufa turned into pearls. At the appearance of such a miracle one of those two men could not endure it either and called the Master a sorcerer; and the last one, who had believed, secretly put a large pearl in his pocket. The next day the Commander of the Faithful (AS) ordered him to throw the pearl away in the desert and said: Did you want to test me and see whether tomorrow the pearl would remain a pearl or turn back into a pebble?)
We say: the miracles of Ali in the reports are many. However, as the Master himself (AS) states explicitly in this very hadith, the capacity to grasp and bear them does not exist even among the company of believers, and so in most cases making them public is out of place. It is my own practice not to relate reports of this kind, except for a few, for particular reasons and on grounds that lie between me and my Master.)
Ibn Abi Hamza, from Abu Basir, from Abu Abd Allah al-Sadiq (AS), who said: There came to the Commander of the Faithful (AS) a letter from his governor at Nahrawan, saying that thousands of men of the Kharijites had proclaimed their slogan of judgement at Nahrawan, raised their banners, drawn their weapons, and come to the crossing, and that they had brought out Abd Allah ibn Khabbab ibn al-Hukm, come to him, cried 'God is greatest,' and said: Praise be to God who has given us victory over you, O treacherous one, unbeliever with the unbelief of Ali ibn Abi Talib, who persists with him in his apostasy! By God, we shall surely kill you and your wife, drawing near to God through your blood. And they brought a pig and slaughtered it on the bank of the Nahrawan and slaughtered Abd Allah ibn Khabbab over it, and said: By God, we have slaughtered you and this pig as one and the same. Now Abd Allah ibn Khabbab was among the most devout of the Shi'a of the Commander of the Faithful, the most excellent and the best of them. And they slaughtered his wife and his child over him and said: This is what we have done to the Shi'a of Ali and his supporters; we shall kill them and leave not one of them alive. The Commander of the Faithful read the letter and wept in compassion for Abd Allah, his wife, and his child, and said: Ah, O Abd Allah! Though God has stricken religion with grief through you, you and your wife and your child have gone to the gardens of the Lord of the Worlds. Those in the camp heard what had reached him, and the people of the camp cried out: What do you judge, O Commander of the Faithful? He said: Make ready with us against these renegades, for by God I see their destruction and their joining the Fire. So he returned to Nahrawan and encamped near the bridge. A horseman came galloping to him and said: O Commander of the Faithful, the people have crossed the bridge. He (AS) said to him: They have not crossed it. Then another horseman came, spurring his horse, and said: O Commander of the Faithful, they have crossed the bridge. He said: By God, you have spoken falsely; they have not crossed it and they will not cross it. Then another horseman came and said: O Commander of the Faithful, the people meant to cross it but did not cross it. He said: You have spoken the truth. Then the Commander of the Faithful (AS) went out from the camp with the patched sandals of the Messenger of God (PBUH) on his feet and a cloak on his shoulders, with Abd Allah ibn al-Abbas on his right and Abu Ayyub Khalid ibn Zayd al-Ansari on his left, walking toward the Kharijites. His companions leapt up at him from his camp with their weapons and stood before him and said: O Commander of the Faithful, do you go out to the enemies of God, the enemies of His Messenger, and your own enemies, bare and without weapon, while they are helmeted in iron and want nothing but your life? He said: Go back, may God have mercy on you; for by Him who split the seed and created the soul, nothing shall be but what God (Mighty and Majestic) wills. Then, after he (AS) had spoken with them and set forth his proofs against them, and they had not accepted, a group who had responded turned aside to him, apart from the four thousand who had gone out of religion, and they said: O Commander of the Faithful, let us fight them at your side. He said: No; stand aside, neither with us nor against us, and behold how the judgement of God takes effect upon them. He cried out to them three times, so that all of them heard: Will you turn back in repentance? Will you return? And they answered all together: From fighting you, no. So he said to his companions: By God, were it not that I dislike your abandoning action and relying upon me for the merit due to the one who fights, no one but I would fight these men, and I would have from God the merit that is with Him in this world and the next. So fall upon them, for I am falling upon them. And they became 'like ashes over which the wind blows fiercely on a stormy day' [Qur'an 14:18], or like the day when 'God said to them: Die' [Qur'an 2:243], and they died. When they had finished, the Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: Who among you has been killed? Not more than nine will have been killed, and not more than nine of them will have survived. So they sought out who among them had been killed and who had escaped, and none escaped but nine; and they counted the slain among the companions of the Commander of the Faithful and found them to be nine. He said: By Him who splits the seed and creates the soul, I have not lied, nor have I been lied to. The Kharijites had gone out against him before that at Harura, on the side of Kufa, west of the Euphrates, twelve thousand men strong. The news came to him, and he went out to them among the people, wearing the cloak of the Messenger of God (PBUH) and with the mule of the Messenger of God (PBUH). The people said to him: O Commander of the Faithful, do you go out to them among the people in a cloak, while these men are armed to the teeth? He said: This is not the day of fighting them; rather they will come out against me at the battle of Nahrawan, four thousand men, passing out of Islam as an arrow passes through the target. When they came forth he said to them: Be content with a hundred of you; then he said to every ten: Be content with one man of you; and he said to that man: This is not the day, the time, of fighting them. They will be scattered until they become four thousand, and they will come out against me next year, in a month like this month and on a day like this day, and I shall go out to you and kill you until only nine men remain. By Him who split the seed and created the soul, thus did the Messenger of God (PBUH) inform me. So they split apart until they became four thousand men, some of them disavowing others, just as the Commander of the Faithful (AS) had told them; and he killed them, and none of them remained but nine men. (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 135)
Imam al-Sadiq (AS) said: The governor of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) at Nahrawan wrote to him that several thousand of the Kharijites had gathered there, pitched camp, raised banners, drawn their weapons, and blocked the road; that they had seized Abd Allah, the son of Khabbab ibn al-Aratt, who had wished to pass through with his pregnant wife, for the crime of friendship with Ali, and had slaughtered him beside a pig together with his wife, and had drawn the unborn child out of the mother's belly and cut its throat as well; and that afterwards they had cried 'God is greatest' and all chanted that by killing such unbelievers they were drawing near to God, and that they would kill Ali's companions one by one in the same way. Abd Allah ibn Khabbab was among the most devout, the most excellent, and the best of the companions of the Commander of the Faithful (AS). When Ali (AS) read the letter he wept and said: O Abd Allah, may God have mercy on you and on your wife and your child and give you a place in His nearness. When the people learned the contents of the letter, cries and wailing rose from the crowd and they shouted: O Commander of the Faithful, how long must we be patient? Lead us to battle against these renegades. Ali (AS) led the army of Kufa toward Nahrawan and encamped before the bridge, so that a canal lay between the two armies. A messenger came in alarm and said: O Commander of the Faithful, the Kharijites have crossed the bridge and are coming toward us. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: Impossible! Some time later another messenger arrived and repeated the same words. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: The Kharijites have not crossed the bridge, and it is not decreed that they should cross it. A little later a third messenger came and said: They wanted to cross, but then they drew back. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: This report is the true one. The place decreed for their being killed in God's knowledge is that side of the canal, not ours. Then, in order to complete the proof against them, the Commander of the Faithful (AS) went out from among his own troops without weapon or armour, wearing the sandals of the Messenger of God and with a cloak on his shoulders, accompanied by Abd Allah ibn Abbas and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, and walked toward the Kharijites. When the soldiers saw this their outcry rose to the sky and they barred the way of the Commander of the Faithful (AS), saying: How can you go among the Kharijites without weapon or companion, while they are armed to the teeth and thirsty for your blood! The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said: Be calm and do not come with me; may God have mercy on you! By God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, nothing shall happen except what God wills. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) went among them, heard their baseless talk, answered their words one by one, and gave proof of his own rightness and of the falsity of their notion. A number of them accepted and came over to the Commander of the Faithful (AS), saying: We are with you now, and we will fight our old comrades at your side. Ali (AS) said to them: No; be neither with our army nor with the army of the Kharijites. Rather, sit upon that height and watch how the judgement of God takes effect among the Kharijites and destroys them one by one. Then he turned to the group, some four thousand in number, who had not accepted and remained firm in their falsehood, and cried out, saying so that all could hear: Will you repent and turn back from your way? They all shouted: We shall never repent of fighting you! So Ali (AS) returned to his own army and said to his companions: If I did not fear that you would abandon action and rely upon my support, I would tell you how great is the reward of one who has done nothing but fight the Kharijites. Truly, no one but I had the strength to kill this band of feigned piety. Then he said: Bear down hard upon these people, for they bear down hard upon the people. Be to them like a fierce wind that blows upon ashes and scatters them: 'like ashes over which the wind blows fiercely on a stormy day' [Qur'an 14:18]; or like the cry of God when He said: Die, and they died: 'And God said to them: Die' [Qur'an 2:243], and they died. Then he gave the order for battle, and before it he said: Of you no more than nine will be killed, and of them no more than nine will remain alive. And so it was. When word was brought to the Commander of the Faithful (AS) that only nine of his army had been martyred, that the number of their slain was very great, and that scarcely a single band had escaped, he said: By God, His Messenger has never lied to me, and I do not lie to you. The Kharijites had earlier gathered near Kufa in a crowd of twelve thousand and had intended to attack Kufa. On that occasion too the Commander of the Faithful (AS) went among them without weapon and warned them. When they reproached him for it, he said: Today is not the day of their battle with us. Next year, in this same month and on this same day, in a company of four thousand, they will all be killed by our army except nine men who will escape. And it happened just as Ali (AS), by divine knowledge, had foretold.
Abu Hamza al-Thumali, from his father, from Abu Basir, from Abu Abd Allah al-Sadiq (AS), who said: The Euphrates rose among them at Kufa in the days of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) until it overflowed and swelled like mountains and came level with the high places of Kufa. On that day the Commander of the Faithful (AS) had gone out to Najaf with a number of his companions. He looked at a certain part of Najaf and said to the men with him: I see Najaf telling me that the water has overflowed in the Euphrates until it has risen over the dwellings of Kufa, and that the people there are crying out and turning to us for help; so rise and let us go to them. So he and the company set out for Kufa, and its people met him crying out and calling for help. He said: What is your state? The water has overflowed upon you? God would not punish you while I am among you. And he went on, making for the Euphrates with the people around him, until he came upon a gathering of Thaqif. They winked at one another about him, and some of their young men pointed at him, and the Commander of the Faithful turned toward them in anger. Their elders rose to him and said: O Commander of the Faithful, these are youths who have no sense, so do not hold us to account for them. Then he came to the Euphrates, which was surging with waves like mountains, and the people fell on their faces and cried out: God, God, O Commander of the Faithful! Be gentle with your subjects. So he dismounted and took the staff of the Messenger of God (PBUH) and struck the water a single blow and said: Flow within measure, O Euphrates! And it flowed. (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 150)
Imam al-Sadiq (AS) said: In the time of the Commander of the Faithful (AS), on a day when he had gone out with several of his companions to the desert of Najaf, the Euphrates flooded at Kufa and rose so high that the water poured into the people's houses. In Najaf the Commander of the Faithful (AS) said to his companions: The earth of Najaf is speaking with me and telling me of the flooding of the Euphrates and of the wailing of the people. Come, let us return. So the Commander of the Faithful (AS) and his companions returned toward Kufa and found the people crying out and seeking refuge. Ali (AS) said: God will not punish you while I am among you! The people said: O Commander of the Faithful, come to our aid! Ali (AS) set out with the people toward the Euphrates. When he reached the dwellings of Thaqif, some of the ruffian youths of Thaqif pointed at him with their hands and mocked him. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) looked at them in anger. The elders of Thaqif said: O Commander of the Faithful, these are a group of ignorant youths; do not blame us for their ugly deed. Then Ali (AS), together with the crowd, continued on his way toward the Euphrates. When he reached the bank of the Euphrates, he struck the water of the Euphrates a single blow with the staff of the Prophet (PBUH), which was made from the branch of a date palm, and said: Flow to the measure that you should, O Euphrates! Before long the Euphrates ceased its flooding and drew back.
Sadir al-Sayrafi related from a man of Murad called Rabab ibn Riyah, who said: I was standing at the head of the Commander of the Faithful in Basra, after the affair of the People of the Camel had been concluded, when Abd Allah ibn Abbas came and said: O Commander of the Faithful, I have a need of you. He said to him: I knew your need before you mentioned it to me; you have come to ask me for safe-conduct for Marwan ibn al-Hakam. He said to him: O Commander of the Faithful, I would like you to grant him security. He said: Go and bring him to me that he may pledge allegiance to me, but let him come to me only mounted behind you. He said: Only a little while passed before Ibn Abbas came forward with Marwan ibn al-Hakam riding behind him. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said to him: Shall I take your pledge of allegiance? Marwan said: On the understanding that what is in the soul remains as it is. The Commander of the Faithful said: I do not take your pledge upon what is in your soul; I take it only upon what is apparent to me. He said: So the Commander of the Faithful stretched out his hand, and when Marwan had pledged allegiance to him he said: Well now, O son of al-Hakam! You had been afraid of seeing your head struck off in this tumult. By God, it shall not be so, until there come forth from your loins tyrants who will rule over these people, driving them with fear, oppression and injustice, and giving them bitter cups to drink. Marwan said: What Ali told me of came to pass, and then he fled and joined Muawiya. And it was as the Commander of the Faithful (AS) had said. (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 151)
The narrator says: In Basra, after the Battle of the Camel, I was sitting beside the Commander of the Faithful (AS) when Abd Allah ibn Abbas came in and said: O Commander of the Faithful, I have a request of you! Ali (AS) said: I know what your request is! You wish to intercede for Marwan, so that he may pledge allegiance to me. Ibn Abbas said: Yes, and I hope you will accept. Ali said: Bring him. Then he said to us: He will come behind Ibn Abbas, not at his side. And so it was: Ibn Abbas came, and Marwan came in mounted behind him. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) said to Marwan: Shall I take your pledge of allegiance? Marwan said: Yes! Take my pledge on the basis that my heart is sincerely with you. Ali (AS) said: Far from it! Your heart is not with us; but I will take your pledge because of something I know of what is to come. When Marwan had pledged allegiance, the Commander of the Faithful (AS) said to him: Were you afraid that the land of Basra would be the end of you, and that here your head would be parted from your body? It was not so, for it is decreed that you shall live and shall hold the caliphate for the span of a dog's pregnancy, and that from your loins tyrants shall rule over the Muslims and shed their blood. In the end Marwan broke his pledge and fled to Muawiya, and, just as the Commander of the Faithful had foretold, he attained the caliphate. (We say: his caliphate lasted no more than three months; one night his wives fell upon him and suffocated him. But the Banu Marwan, as Ali (AS) had said, ruled over the Muslims for years.)
Al-Harith al-A'war al-Hamdani said: We were with the Commander of the Faithful (AS) at al-Kunasa when a lion came bounding toward us. We shrank back from around him until it reached the Commander of the Faithful (AS), and he said to it: Go back, and do not enter the abode of my migration after this day. And convey from me to the beasts of prey that they are to keep away from Kufa and from all that surrounds it. Know that obedience to me is obedience to God; and if they disobey God and abandon obedience to me, I shall pass judgement upon them. So the beasts of prey kept away from Kufa until the Commander of the Faithful (AS) passed away and Ziyad ibn Abihi, the claimed son of Abu Sufyan (may God curse him), took charge of it. When he entered the city, the beasts of prey were given power over Kufa and its surroundings, until they destroyed most of the people. (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 151)
The narrator says: After the Commander of the Faithful (AS) had settled in Kufa, we were one day with him on the outskirts of the city. From afar came the roar of a lion, and a lion appeared. It came nearer and nearer. The Commander of the Faithful (AS) went toward the lion and said to it: Return to the thicket, and from this day on do not come near Kufa or its people. Tell the other beasts of prey as well, on my behalf, to keep away from Kufa and its surroundings; and tell them that obedience to me is obedience to God, and that if they do not observe this, I shall pass judgement concerning them. The narrator says: After this event, as long as the Commander of the Faithful (AS) was alive the beasts of prey stayed away from Kufa; but after his martyrdom, and especially from the time when Ibn Ziyad took the affairs of Kufa in hand, the beasts of prey again gained mastery over the outskirts of Kufa and destroyed many people over time.
Al-Harith al-A'war al-Hamdani said: While the Commander of the Faithful (AS) was addressing the people on a Friday in the mosque of Kufa, a serpent came in from the direction of the Elephant Gate, its head larger than the head of a camel, making straight for the pulpit. The people scattered to the two sides of the mosque in fear of it, until it climbed the pulpit; then it stretched up to the ear of the Commander of the Faithful, and he inclined toward it, and it kept whispering to him for a long while. Then it went down, and when it reached the gate of the Commander of the Faithful which they call the Elephant Gate, its trace was cut off and it vanished from the people and was not seen again. There remained no believing man or woman who did not say: This is one of the marvels of the Commander of the Faithful; and there remained no hypocrite, man or woman, who did not say: This is part of Ali's sorcery. So the Commander of the Faithful said: O people, I am no sorcerer. This that you have seen is the legatee of Muhammad over the jinn, just as I am his legatee over mankind; and it obeys me more than you obey me, and it is my deputy among them. A bloody conflict has broken out among the jinn in which blood is being shed unavenged, and he who does not know the way out of it nor the ruling concerning it came to ask me for an answer, and I answered him with the truth. As for this sight which was presented to you, he intended by it to show you my excellence over you, of which he knows better than you do. (al-Hidaya al-Kubra, vol. 1, p. 152)
The narrator says: One Friday, while the Commander of the Faithful (AS) was delivering the sermon from the pulpit, an enormous serpent came in through the door of the mosque. The people took fright, scattered to both sides and drew back out of its way. When the Commander of the Faithful (AS) saw the situation, he called out: Make way for it! The serpent came toward the pulpit, drew itself up the pulpit's step, came close to the face of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) and seemed to say something to him. Then it turned back quietly, passed through the middle of the mosque and went out by the door of the mosque. But outside the door it seemed to vanish and sink into the ground, and no one ever saw it again. All those who were present that day witnessed this event, so much so that the door of the mosque through which the serpent had entered came to be called Bab al-Thu'ban, that is, the Gate of the Serpent. (Later, in order to make this event fall out of memory, Muawiya had an elephant chained beside that gate for a year, so that the gate came to be named Bab al-Fil, the Elephant Gate. This gate, on the north-western side of the mosque of Kufa, still remains today.) The narrator says: At that time this event was among the most famous of the miracles of the Commander of the Faithful in the eyes of the believers, and many hypocrites too witnessed its occurrence, but took it as proof that Ali (AS) was a sorcerer. As soon as this reached the ears of the Commander of the Faithful (AS), he said: I am no sorcerer. This creature that you saw in the form of a serpent was a jinni who had taken that shape, and he was asking me to give judgement on a matter between two tribes of the jinn, before their dispute should lead to bloodshed.