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This is the sermon known as al-Waseela, from Imam Ali, peace be upon him, recorded in the book Tuhaf al-Uqool, starting on page sixty-seven. Over the next few minutes, we are not going to memorize it. We're going to understand it. And those are two very different things.

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Here's the problem. This sermon is dense. In about five pages, there are well over a hundred separate sayings. No treasure is more useful than knowledge. Ask about the companion before the road. Each one is beautiful on its own.

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And that's exactly the trap. Most people read something like this the way they'd read a list of quotes. One after another. It feels profound in the moment, and a week later, you remember maybe three. Not because you're not smart, but because isolated facts have nothing to hold on to.

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So we're going to flip the order. First, the big picture. What is this sermon actually about? Then, the handful of concepts that organize everything. And only then, the details, where every saying gets a home on a map. Build the structure first, and the details almost remember themselves.

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Quick context. The book is Tuhaf al-Uqool, compiled by Ibn Shuba al-Harrani in the fourth Islamic century. This sermon is known as al-Waseela. And notice the compiler's little note under the title: we wrote from it only what this book required. So what we're reading is a selection.

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Now look at its shape. It opens with praise of God: a God beyond imagination, who knows without needing tools. Then a rhythm kicks in. O people. O people. Again and again, each followed by a burst of sayings. Then a long run of rapid-fire wisdom. And then it closes with a chain of conditions. That ending is the key to everything. So let's start there.

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Here's how the sermon ends. A Muslim is not truly a Muslim until he is scrupulous. He won't be scrupulous until he is detached from the world. He won't be detached until he is resolute. And he won't be resolute until he is intelligent.

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Notice the direction. Everything rests on one foundation. Intellect. And then he defines it. The intelligent one is only he who understands from God, and works for the final home. So intellect here isn't I.Q. It's seeing clearly, and then acting on what actually lasts.

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So here is the whole sermon in one breath. The heart is constantly swinging to extremes. Intellect is the steering wheel. The two places we crash most are the tongue and the ego. And every small choice compounds over a lifetime. Hold on to that. Everything else hangs off it.

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Let's build the map. In the middle, intellect. The steering wheel.

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Branch one. The swinging heart. This is the problem intellect has to manage.

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Branch two. Wanting. Greed versus contentment.

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Branch three. The tongue. The biggest lever you have.

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Branch four. The ego. The blind spot.

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Branch five. The tools of intellect. How you actually steer.

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And branch six. The long game. Judging things by how they end. Now let's walk through each one, and then come back and connect them.

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Branch one. He says: the most amazing thing in a person is his heart. It holds supplies of wisdom, and the opposites of wisdom. Then he walks through what happens to it in each state.

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If hope rises, greed humiliates it. If it's pleased, it forgets to be careful. If it feels safe, heedlessness robs it. If a blessing comes, pride takes hold. If wealth arrives, it becomes a tyrant. If disaster strikes, panic disgraces it. Even if it simply overeats, the fullness weighs it down.

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Now, this is worth pausing on. Look how many of these are good states. Being pleased. Feeling safe. Having money. And each one still has a trap. So the lesson isn't, avoid bad feelings. It's that every state, good or bad, pulls you toward an extreme. He sums it up: every falling short harms it, and every excess corrupts it. That's the job description for intellect. Keep the heart in balance.

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And elsewhere he says it directly. Souls have impulses toward desire, and intellects restrain and forbid. The heart swings. Intellect steers.

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Branch two. Wanting. This is the heart's most common swing, so it gets its own branch. And he flips our normal idea of rich and poor. Contentment is wealth that never runs out. Greed is a sign of poverty. Desire is the key to exhaustion, and hoarding is a mount that rides you into fatigue.

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So rich and poor are measured in the heart, not the bank account. Someone who has a lot but keeps wanting more is, by this definition, poor. And look at his cure. Whoever remembers death often is content with little. That's a link to another branch, the long game. Keep it in mind. We'll draw that arrow later.

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Branch three. The tongue. And he doesn't start by saying, talk less. He starts by showing how powerful it is. In a person there are ten traits, and his tongue displays them. It's a witness that reports what's in the heart. A judge that settles disputes. It answers. It gets your needs met. It describes. It commands good and forbids the ugly. It consoles the grieving, heals grudges with praise, and delights the ear.

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That first job is the key one. The tongue is a witness to the heart. Whatever is swinging inside comes out through speech. That's why the rule isn't simply, be silent. He says: there's no good in staying silent about wisdom, just as there's no good in speaking from ignorance. The real question is always, what is driving this speech?

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Then he shows what happens when it's left unchecked. Whoever talks much, errs much. Whoever errs much, his sense of shame shrinks. Whoever's shame shrinks, his scrupulousness shrinks. Whoever's scrupulousness shrinks, his heart dies. And whoever's heart dies, enters the Fire. It's a slide. Each step makes the next one easier.

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Now, put it next to the ladder from the ending. Do you see it? Scrupulousness appears in both. Intellect builds it from below. Careless talk erodes it from above. That tells you why the tongue matters so much. It attacks the exact rung that holds faith up.

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And his practical fix is one simple reframe. Whoever knows that his speech is part of his deeds, speaks little, except in what benefits. Talking feels free. It isn't. It's an action, and it counts.

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Branch four. The ego, the blind spot. Whoever looks at his own faults is too busy for the faults of others. Whoever admires his own opinion goes astray. Whoever thinks his own intellect is enough, slips. And one of my favourites: there is no loneliness more desolate than self-admiration.

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Here's the connection. You'd think a confident, self-admiring person must have a strong intellect. He says the opposite. A person's admiration of himself points to the weakness of his intellect. Why? Because ego switches off the tools. If I'm sure I'm right, I don't consult, I don't learn, I don't check. The ego doesn't just make you unlikeable. It makes you blind.

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There's a second pattern in this branch. The boomerang. Whoever draws the sword of injustice is killed by it. Whoever digs a well for his brother falls into it. Whoever tears away another person's cover, the faults of his own house get exposed. What you aim at others comes back to you.

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Branch five. The tools of intellect. If intellect is the steering wheel, these are how you actually steer. Knowledge. No treasure is more useful. Planning. Planning before acting protects you from regret. Reflection. There's no worship like it. Consultation. No support is more reliable. Experience, which gives you fresh knowledge. And company. Ask about the companion before the road.

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Now look at that list again. Knowledge, consultation, experience, company. Most of them pull you outside your own head. Which is exactly what the ego blocks. So branches four and five are two sides of the same coin. Humility is what lets the tools work.

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Branch six. The long game. Night and day are racing each other to demolish lifespans. No absent one is nearer than death. And this one reframes everything. No good is truly good if the Fire comes after it. And no hardship is truly bad if Paradise comes after it.

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The principle is: judge by the ending, not the moment. That's why he warns: don't make a sinner despair. How many who were devoted to sin ended well, and how many devoted to good deeds were corrupted at the end. And it's why he says purifying the intention is harder on workers than a long struggle. The long game isn't only about doing good. It's about why you do it.

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Now let's zoom back out and connect it. The heart swings, and its most common swing is wanting. The tongue is the witness of the heart, so it broadcasts those swings. The ego switches the tools off. The long game feeds contentment, because remembering death shrinks greed. And the long game is built into the very definition of intellect. One who works for the final home.

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Six branches. But one system. That's the difference between knowing a list and understanding a structure. Any new saying from this sermon now has an obvious place to live.

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Let's test that. Here are six sayings we haven't covered. Pause the video now, and decide which branch each one belongs to. Don't worry about being perfect. The struggle of deciding is exactly what makes it stick.

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Here's how I'd place them. Not controlling the tongue, the tongue. Forgetting your own slip but magnifying others', the ego. Greed that disappoints, wanting. Weighing different opinions, a tool. Anger making rage fiercer, the swinging heart. And every blessing short of Paradise being small, the long game. If you put one somewhere else and can explain why, that's even better. It means you're seeing connections.

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Understanding is step one. But this sermon is clearly meant to change behaviour. So here are three small experiments for this week. One. Before you speak, ask: would I want this counted as a deed? Two. When you notice a strong feeling, good or bad, name its trap. Pleased? Watch your caution. Safe? Watch for heedlessness. Three. Before one real decision, plan it, and ask one person for their view. Then notice what changes.

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Last thing. Close your eyes, and try to redraw the map. Intellect in the centre. Six branches. The swinging heart, wanting, the tongue, the ego, the tools, and the long game. Plus the two ladders that meet at scrupulousness. If you can redraw that from memory, you don't just remember this sermon. You own it. And every time you reread it, each saying will click into place.

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Thanks for learning with me.