Nahjul BalaghaSermons
Sermon 226
About allegiance to Imam for the Caliphate. A similar sermon has already appeared earlier.
You drew out my hand towards you for allegiance but I held it back and you stretched it but I contracted it. Then you crowed over me as the thirsty camels crowd on the watering cisterns on their being taken there, so much so that shoes were torn, shoulder-cloths fell away and the weak got trampled, and the happiness of people on their allegiance to me was so manifested that small children felt joyful, the old staggered (up to me) for it, the sick too reached for it in haste and young girls ran for it without veils.