The Secret of Imam Ali's (A.S.) Force of Attraction

What is the reason for the friendship and love for Ali in people's hearts ?
Nobody has yet discovered the secret of this love, that is, no-one has been
able to formulate it, and say that if it were like this then that would follow, or if
it were like that then this would happen. However it does of course have a
secret. There is something in the love which dazzles the one who loves and
draws him towards it. This attraction and love are the highest degrees of love;
Ali - is the one whom people's hearts adore, whom humanity loves. Why ? In
what does Ali's extraordinariness lie, that it incites love and draws hearts
towards itself, that it plays the tune of eternal life and lives for ever ? Why do
all hearts find out about themselves through him, and do not feel him to be
dead but find him living ?

Certainly the basis for love for him is not his body, because his body is not
now among us and we have not perceived it with our senses. Love for Ali is
also not hero- worship, which exists in every nation. It is a mistake, too, to say
the love for Ali is by way of love for moral and human excellence, and that
love for Ali is a humanistic love. It is true that Ali was the manifestation of the
perfect man, and it is true that man loves great figures of humanity; but if Ali
had had all those human excellences that he had
    that wisdom and knowledge,
    that self-sacrifice and altruism,
    that humility and modesty,
    that courtesy,
    that kindness and mercy,
    that protection of the weak,
    that justness,
    that liberality and love of freedom,
    that respect for humanity,
    that generosity,
    that bravery,
    that magnanimity and mercy towards his enemies,
and, in the words of Rumi':

       In bravery you are the Lion of the Lord,
        In generosity who indeed knows who you are ?

that munificence, benevolence and beneficence - if Ali had had all these,
which he did have, but had not had the divine touch in him, it is quite certain
that there would not have been the feeling of sympathy and awakening of
love that there is today.

Ali is loved in the sense that he had the divine link;
our hearts are unconsciously completely involved with, and connected
to, the Truth, right in their depths, and since they find Ali to be a great sign
of the Truth and a manifestation of the attributes of the Truth they are
in love with him. In reality, the basis for the love for Ali is the connection
of our souls with the Truth which has been laid in our primordial natures, and
since our primordial natures are eternal, love for Ali; is also eternal.

There are many outstanding features in Ali's being, but that which has
assigned him a resplendent and shining place for ever is his faith and
morality, and it is that which has given him his divine charisma.

Allama Murtaza Mutahheri
Polarization around the Character of Imam Ali (as)
W.O.F.I.S - First Edition 1981