Miracle 3: An Enemy of Imam Ali (a.s.) Falls Prey to a Lion

Allamah Majlisi quotes the below incident from the book Kashf al Yaqeen. The narrator says,

‘One of the special ones of Imam Ali (a.s.) said, ‘I was with Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) in the middle of Shaban and he (a.s.) was looking for a place to shelter in it for the night, and I was with him (a.s.) until he (a.s.) came to a place. After he (a.s.) descended from his mule, it brayed, and pulled me.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) sensed something and said: ‘What is behind you?’ I said, ‘May my father and my mother be sacrificed for you! The mule looked at something and went towards it and brayed, and I don’t know what is that which attracted it’.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) looked at the wilderness and said: ‘A predator, by the Lord of the Kabah!’ Then he (a.s.) stood up from his prayer niche, collared with his sword, and went on to step (forward), then said shouting at it: ‘Stop!’

The lion feared and paused. At that, the mule calmed down.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘O lion! Do you not know that I am ‘Al-Lays’ (The rigid lion), and I am ‘Al-Zargham’ (The powerful lion), and ‘Al-Qaswara’ (The ferocious lion), and ‘Al-Haidar’ (The piercing lion)?’

Then he (a.s.) said: ‘What have you come for, O lion?’ Then he (a.s.) said: ‘O Allah, the Almighty! Cause its tongue to speak!’

The lion said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! And O best of the successors! And O inheritor of knowledge of the Prophets! And O distinguisher between the truth and the falsehood! I have not hunted anything for the past seven days and the hunger is troubling me, and I saw you all from a distance of two Farsakhs, so I came near you, and said, ‘I shall go and look who these people are and if there happens to be an opportunity for me regarding them’.

Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said answering to it: ‘O lion! Do you not know that I am Ali (a.s.), father of the eleven cubs (Imams (a.s.))? My claws are better than yours, and I would love to show you!’ Then the lion extended in front of him (a.s.) and he (a.s.) went on to caress his hand upon its head and said: ‘What have you come for, O lion? You are a dog of Allah, the Almighty in His earth’.

It said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.), the hunger! The hunger’. He (a.s.) said: ‘O Allah! Grace it by the worth of Mohammed (s.a.w.a.) and his purified household (a.s.)’.

He (the narrator) said, ‘And there, the lion was eating something in the form of the camel until it came to him (a.s.). Then it said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! By Allah! we, the community of lions, will not eat any man who loves you and loves your family, for my maternal uncle had eaten so and so, and we are a family which claims the love of the Hashemites and their families’.

Then Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) said: ‘O you lion! Where do you shelter and where do you happen to be?’ It said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! I am appointed upon the dogs of the people of Syria, and like that are my family members, and they are our prey, and we shelter by the Nile.

He (a.s.) said: ‘So, what have you come for to Kufa?’ It said, ‘O Ameerul Momineen (a.s.)! I came to Al-Hijaz, but I could not encounter anything, and I am in this wilderness and the desert steppe in which there is no water nor any good place in this. And I shall be leaving this place tonight to go to a man called Sinan Bin Wabil, being from the ones who escaped from the battle of Siffeen descending at Al-Qadisiya, and he is my sustenance in this night of mine, and he is from the people of Al-Syria, and I am headed to him’.

Then it stood from being in front of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.). He (a.s.) said to me: ‘What are you astounded from? Is this more astounding that the sun, or the spring, or the stars or rest of that? By the One Who Split the seed and formed the person! If I love to show the people, from what Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) has taught me, from the signs and the miracles and the wonders, they would be returning to be Kafirs’.

Then Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) returned to his dwelling and sent me to Al-Qadisiya. I rode the same night and arrived at Al-Qadisiya before the Muezzin had proclaimed the Iqaamah. I heard the people saying, ‘Sinan has fallen prey to the lion’. I went to him among the ones who went to look at him, and (saw that) the lion had not left anything except his head and part of his limbs like the ends of the fingers, and I was at his door to carry his head to Kufa to Ameer al Momineen (a.s.).

I remained astounded and narrated what had happened from the conversation of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) and the lion. The people went on to take the soil from under the feet of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) to be blessed and healed by it.

He (a.s.) stood to address. He (a.s.) praised Allah, the Almighty and extolled upon Him, then said: ‘O community of people! No man will love us and (end up to) enter the Fire, and no man will hate us and (end up to) enter the Paradise, and I am distributor of the Paradise and the Fire. I shall apportion between the Paradise and the Fire, this one right to the Paradise, and this one left to the Fire.

I shall say to Hell on the Day of Qiyamah: ‘This is for me and this one is for you’, until my Shias cross over the Bridge like the bolt of lightning and the stormy thunder, and like the quick bird, and like the winning horse!’

The people stood up to him (a.s.) in their entirety as one neck, and they were saying, ‘The Praise is for Allah, the Almighty Who Graced you over most of His creatures’.¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 41, Chp 111, Trad 5 ↩