Nahj al-Balāghah, the celebrated compendium of orations, letters, and sayings of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015), is a masterpiece of Arabic literature and Islamic wisdom studied and memorized avidly and continually for over a thousand years. Showcasing ʿAlī’s life and travails in his own words, it also transcribes his profound reflections on piety and virtue, and on just and compassionate governance. Tahera Qutbuddin’s meticulously researched critical edition based on the earliest 5th/11th-century manuscripts, with a lucid, annotated translation, brings to the modern reader the power and beauty of this influential text, and confirms the aptness of Raḍī’s title, “The Way of Eloquence.”

Tahera Qutbuddin, Ph.D. (1999), Harvard University, is AlBabtain Laudian Professor of Arabic at The University of Oxford. Author of the award-winning Arabic Oration: Art and Function (Brill, 2019), she has published widely on Islamic preaching, Muḥammad’s ḥadīth, ʿAlī’s sermons, Fatimid poetry, Ṭayyibī Bohra literature, and Arabic in India.

This edition is aimed at a wide readership interested in classical Arabic literature, Islamic studies, and Shiʿism, also history, virtue ethics, government, religion, political science, world literature, and orality studies.