The analysis of the critical speech of 108th Sermon based on van Dijk's ideological square theory

analyzing religious texts based on new theories causes the dynamism of those texts and their deeper. One of the new theories that came up in the 20th is van Dijk's ideological square theory in the field of critical speech analysis. van Dijk, who is one of the prominent theorists of speech analysis, presents his ideological square theory for speech analysis; His ideological squad has four sides, which emphasizes on signalization the positive features of oneself, the negative characteristics of the other, and paling out the negative characteristics of the self, the positive characteristics of the other. Considering the high potential of this theory, the present research intends to examine the 108th sermon of Nahj al-Balagha, which is considered as one of the war sermons, with a qualitative approach and critical speech analysis method based on van Dijk’s ideological squad and tries to find out the imam's hidden ideology through it. Imam Ali could be found in the lower layers of the mentioned text. It is inferred that all the efforts of the speaker about signalization and marginalization are along with the realization of this hidden ideology that he and the Prophet are the truth and their government is also a symbol of righteousness and the rule, while Bani Umayyah is false, and their leadership is also a symbol of injustice and falsehood. In the meantime, the Kufians have also joined the false group by weakness, which should be informed and saved from joining into the false front and absolute blackness.