Discursive Formation of Sermon 216 of Nahjulbalaghah (The Reproduction of the Theory of Survival and Decline of the Ruling Power in Imam Ali's view)

Sermon 216 in Nahjulbalaghah greatly contributes in verifying the relation between the state and people according to Imam Ali’s political thought. Adopting descriptive approach along with the efficiency of discourse analysis method, this research provides a discourse format which is designed in six stages: finding and probing lexical meaning as well as finding the concept, category, axis and discourse. The output of this format is a pattern called, “The Discourse Hierarchy of Ruling Power Criticism” which is within the context of “True Discourse”. The conditions and conclusions of this discourse format, whether fulfilled or not in the society, are among the other outputs.