Imam Ali's Last Night


According to narrations, when (his companions) brought milk, bread and salt for Amir al-Mu'minin to eat the night before the morning of which he was martyred- and of course the kind of bread he would eat was not the Sanggak (a kind of local Iranian bread, which is of a good quality) you normally eat- he retorted, "When did I ever have two kinds of stew that you have brought me these?" He took the salt and told the person (who brought the food) to swear by his life to take the milk back, and the latter obliged. Then he (Imam Ali) ate two morsels of the bread with salt. The next morning he attained martyrdom without a word and without anything. He made things with his own hands, but he endowed all of them. When water spurted out of that big artesian well, which Hadrat Amir dug painstakingly with his own hands, he exclaimed, "Glad tidings be upon my heirs!" However, he did not bequeath it to his heirs; he endowed that, too

Sahifeh, vol.6, Page: 285
Speech, March 6, 1979