The Sermon of The Pious (part 2)

The Importance of 'Morality'

I don’t know why when speaking about morality, the majority of people consider it as a dispensable issue, while most of the individual and social problems of people are certainly and precisely due to our frailty. Morality is the principal asset of nations; it is the key for solving major social problems. Morality is the pillar of civilization of a sound social life and it is the best means for moving towards Allah.

In this article one of the most interesting sermons of Imam Ali (A.S), 'The sermon of the God-fearing' is mentioned and analyzed. In this sermon 110 most important features of the pious is mentioned. Each feature is as important as the other. Almost half of sermon which consists of half of the features is interpreted and analyzed.

The sermon consists of 110 features. The features are described in the form of phrases. The phrases are analyzed according to depth of vocabulary. Another name of this sermon is 'The Sermon of Hamman'. This sermon is an instruction for those who want to reach the truth and the basic element for living, for those who like spruceness and seek decency in a decent conscience. The 'Hamman Sermon' reveals the effect of a true teacher on a true student. The result of such an effect is the departure of the student’s soul from his body. It is the first time in the history that an orator has stupefied his auditor forever. It is only in 'The Hamman Sermon' which the status of speech effect reaches a miraculous degree.

Hamman sermon is one of the most famous sermons of Imam Ali (A.S) and reading and memorizing it is as necessary as reading and memorizing the Qur’an. In this sermon, the description and attitude of the God- fearing is explained. This sermon is a great model for those who are interested to reach perfection and it shows the correct way to the explorers of Allah’s path. What is Discourse Analysis?

We try to express thoughts and ideas to others by using language. Sometimes we use it to communicate with a known person, sometimes to an unknown audience, an example of the former one is conversation and for the latter is media texts. There are constraints on what we say or write, and genre, context, audience, and purpose (G-CAP), act as constraints that affect the discourse which are aspects of communication.

Context is an important aspect of discourse analysis because social and hierarchical aspects of life often bring all kinds of pragmatic meanings into the discourse.

Whenever we put thought in to language, discourse appears. The discourses which are productively analyzed as an analysis at the level of discourse reveal many interesting areas of language use. So discourse is considered a kind of text. And is no more than language. When taking discourse into account, you should consider all the important aspects of context that affected its: creation, reception, and interpretation. Many languages can be considered at the level of discourse such as everyday language, technical language, business language, children’s language and etc. Discourse analysis comments on the user’s personal, cultural, social and historical situation. It is fascinating to dig deeper than the surface meaning of the words, when analyzing a text, for showing interesting aspects of the text users.

Aspects such as word choice, grammar, social hierarchy, and social power always reveal within texts. A useful part of discourse analysis is discourse structure.

Analyzing a text at the level of its discourse structure reveals the different methods used, effects created and purposes intended by the language user, in order to make a coherent and united stretch of language. Therefore one of the elements of style is discourse structure - styles are those choices a language user makes to suit context, genre, audience and purpose.

To be continued...

^{* Fahimeh Mahdavi}