Pathology of historical knowledge from the perspective of Nahj al-Balaghah

Achieving correct historical knowledge and using it at the level of individual and social life of man, requires recognizing and removing the harms that threaten the lesson-teaching feature of history and its usefulness. Imam Ali has repeatedly addressed the matter of history in Nahj Al-Balaghah. After he first considers the historical knowledge to be possible to achieve in different spots and then considers it very important, he introduces obstacles and harms of historical understanding and forewarned his addressees. These harms appear in three general pivots. Not paying attention to the orderliness of history is a harm, which makes history merely a useless knowledge that is stocked in the past. Other harm is being careless about the correct standards of criticizing history. Relying on the dark and unknown spots of history, not separating the benefits and harms of history and insisting on the useless aspects of history are among the harms that occur in this field. The third harm that hurts the historical knowledge is neglecting the history lessons and not using them in practice. Stopping at the stage of studying and explaining the historical knowledge and not preparing a mechanism for using the fruit of historical knowledge in individual and public human behavior is the most serious harm that appears in the path of achieving the historical knowledge. The present stud has counted, analyzed and explained the harms of historical knowledge as introduced at the words of Ali in Nahj Al-Balaghah, by using library resources and in a descriptive-analytical method.