وَقَالَ (عليه السلام):
Amir al-mu'minin, peace be upon him, said:
أَنا يَعْسُوبُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ،
I am the ya'sub (leader) of the believers,
وَالْمَالُ يَعْسُوبُ الْفُجَّارِ.
while wealth is the leader of the wicked.
قال الرضي: ومعنى ذلك أن المؤمنين يتبعونني، والفجار يتبعون المال، كما تتبع النحل يعسوبها، وهو رئيسها.
As-Sayyid ar-Radi says: It means that the believers follow me while the wicked follow wealth just as the bees follow their "ya'sub" who is their leader. 78
78. We have already explained the meaning of the word "ya'sub" in the foot-note of saying No.262-I, and pointed out that this title was given to Amir al-mu'minin by the Holy Prophet himself and we quoted some of his different utterances on this subject. Here we quote one of the traditons in which this title appears. It is narrated by Abu Layla al-Ghifari, Abu Dharr, Salman, Ibn 'Abbas and Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman that the Holy Prophet used to say: Soon after my death there will be discord. When it occurs, adhere to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib since he will be the first person to see me and the first person to shake hands with me on the Day of Judgement. He is the greatest man of truth (as-siddiq al-akbar), and he is the discriminator (faruq) from among this ummah who discriminates between right and wrong, and he is the ya'sub (leader) of the believers while wealth is the ya'sub of the hypocrites. (In addition to the references given in the above-mentioned foot-note, see also Fayd al-qadir, vol.4, p.358; Kanz al-'ummal, vol.12, p.214; Muntakhab al-kanz, vol.5, p.33; Ibn Abi'l-Hadid, vol.13, p.228; Tarikh ash-Sham, Ibn 'Asakir, (on the biography of Amir al-mu'minin), vol.1, pp. 74 - 78; as-Sirah al-halabiyyah, vol.1, p.380; Dhakha'ir al-'uqba, p.56; Yanabi' al-mawaddah, p. 62, 82, 201 and 251).
