group and sectarian interests happened to conflict with their slogans, their interpretations and justifications would come to their aid to surrender the truth. But, Alis’s steadfastness and firm stance on truth and right is indeed a matter of wonder. In his view the ‘Principle’ is right. So it must be equally applied to everyone and practiced by all, friends, near of kin, insiders, outsiders, etc.

3. Adherence to the Law

Law is a strong cord that brings union and alliance among different social strata. What is addressed here is not the issue of lawlessness, as a lawless society is not a human society, rather a jungle,. In fact, the position of law and the way rulers and people look at it, hold significance. The sanctity of law according to Imām Ali (a.s.) is something irreplaceable. This can be seen in many texts, such as “Imām Ali (a.s.) Encyclopedia”, where it reports his interaction with people in financial matters, implementation of legal punishments, judgments, etc. Contemplating on these narrations will show that from the view of Imām Ali (a.s.) no one was above the law and no person or no authority could hinder the execution of Divine law. The position of Imām Ali (a.s.) clearly indicates that he did not regard himself as a man of authority above the law.¹ This was why he did not tolerate any compromising and struggled against flattery and hypocrisy in politics, strongly fought against falsehood, pretending rightfulness(as a show), baseless justifications and [personal] interpretations that were so prevalent in the Umayyad politics.

4. Administrative Discipline

Imām Ali (a.s.) frequently and emphatically enjoined orderliness in affairs and discipline in behavior. This instruction was so important that Imām, even in his deathbed –where he would naturally have stated his most significant and efficient instructions–emphasized it.²
He viewed organization in life and discipline in action as among the lofty goals of Divine Revelation:

memory of a true follower of Imam Ali's (as.) school of politics, the late Imām Khomeini in this respect would be very beneficial and interesting. After his first intense attack against the tyrannical monarchy he was arrested and a high government official met with him and spoke to him about politics. His account of what that person said is as follows:
“[He said:] Politics is a kind of malice, falsehood, rascality, etc, so you’d better leave it to us!”
Imām Khomeini goes on to say:
“He was right in that. If politics is such, then it is theirs.”¹
As for the professional statesmen, if lying, deception and hypocrisy are eliminated from politics, nothing will be left of it for them. Imām Ali (a.s.) politics is in extreme contradiction with this. In his view, honesty is the primary condition of statesmanship. If honesty is left out of the statesmen’s actions and relations with people, then, human rights, adherent to law, social justice, and being truth-oriented, etc..., would be meaningless and vain. In other words, all these in the absence of honesty would be mere slogans for deception of people and instruments for further violation of their rights.
In the politics of Imām Ali (a.s.), employing ‘inverting’ methods is permissible only in battles, within all its restrictions, exceptions, and frameworks which will be pointed out when mentioning the warfare policies of the Imām (a.s.).

2. Truth-Orientation

Adherence to the truth is the manifestation of political honesty in Imām Ali’s (a.s.) government, and is evident all through the short period of Imām Ali’s (a.s.) reign. He thought of nothing but truth and intended nothing but the establishing of rights. His outcry was for the restoring of rights and his silence was for preparing the grounds for safeguarding the truth. His teachings in this regard are very thought-provoking and awakening. There were many who spoke of truth and claimed to be adherent to it; but when their personal,