203. Tārikh al-Tabari – narrating from Yazid ibn`Uday ibn `Uthmān: “I saw Ali (a.s.) passing by the Hamdān neighborhood. He saw two groups fighting there. He separated them and then kept on going and he heard someone say: “Come to my help for God’s sake!”
He quickly ran towards him in such a way that I heard the sound of his footwear and he was calling out: “Help is coming to you.”
At this moment, he saw a man who was holding on to another man’s collar. He said: “O Commander of the Faithful! I sold a garment to this man for nine dirhams on the condition that he would not give me torn and defective dirhams (and this was their common condition of that time) and now I come to him to change these dirhams for me and he is refusing to do so. So I held on to him, and he slapped me.”
Ali (a.s.) said: “Change it for him!” He then said: “What is your proof for being slapped?”
The man showed his proof. Then Ali (a.s.) seated the man and told him [the complainant] to take revenge on him. The man said. “I forgive him O Commander of the Faithful!”
Ali (a.s.) said, “I wanted to be cautious for your rights.” Then he gave the man nine lashes and said, “This is the right of the state.”1
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Prevention of Hoarding
204. Imām Ali (a.s.) – in his letter to Rifā`a: “Forbid hoarding, punish the one who commits it and penalize him by revealing what he had hoarded.”2
1.. Tārikh al-Tabari, vol. ۵, p. ۱۵۶, al-Kāmil fi al-Tārikh, vol. ۲, p. ۴۴۲.
2.. Da`ā'im al-Islām, vol. ۲, p. ۳۶, h. ۸۰.
