6 stars. Stunning stunning stunning thought provoking book. A collection of Imam Alis sermons, letter and sayings. At times Nietzschean and at other times just superbly honest direct and unchallengably poetic. It challenges you on some of your most basic tenets of belief and makes you realize that there are other ways of looking at something you once regarded previously irrefutable. The book gets better and better as you read through it with the final sayings leaving you numbed under a barage of fresh new thoughts and slants on the way you should conduct your life. Not an easy read by any means, didactic in many places and certainly some of the religious overtone many will find excessive but if you can look beyond that and read it for the raw knowledge it exudes it will benefit you immensely.
When i started reading this book, for a moment I thought, how a Human Being can reach up to such heights of knowledge.! Amazing book, me gonna learn it by heart.
I love this book, but there's a problem... I don't fully believe in its authenticity, and therefore do not recommend it for most people. When I read it several years ago, I was not concerned with its authenticity, although I kept it in mind (if I were an Islamic scholar, however, it would have been of the greatest import). I read it at the recommendation of a Shi'a friend of mine. I found the beauty of the words inside to be very inspiring and spiritually uplifting. They also helped me understand my friend's beliefs.
The sheer wisdom and knowledge contained in this volume is both humbling and awe inspiring. As a collection of Imam Ali's speeches, sayings, writings, and letters, it provides a gateway into the mind of perhaps the wisest and most learned man ever to walk the earth, after the Holy Prophet himself.
After reading this volume, it becomes apparent why Imam Ali's "Peak of Eloquence" is hailed above the words of man, and second only to the revealed words of God Almighty, which are manifested in the Holy Qur'an.
Every time I open this book, my thirst for knowledge is quenched, and my longing for wisdom is settled. It is not only an overwhelming treasure to own and comprehend, but it is thought provoking as well as motivational. It will inspire the person to deeply ponder over the greatest and most profound truths of our existence, within the realm of human comprehension.
The Christian Author and Researcher, George Jordaq in his tribute to Imam Ali (AS), says: "The Imam's sermons are full of wise thoughts. O' world, what would have happen if you mobilized your forces to produce in every era a man as great as Imam Ali (AS) in terms of wisdom, moral, expression, eloquence, valour, simplicity, generosity, patience, piety, and magnitude, for the human societies?"
It is a tremendous source of knowledge, and the feeling one gets when one closes this volume is simply amazing, and yet, it is written in a manner such that any reader of any level can benefit from it, from the most educated scholar to the beginning academic.
It would be truly a waste to pass up an opportunity to not to read this book. The treasures contained within are boundless. There is nothing like it.