Al-Sharif al-Radi arranged his compilation in three registers. First come the sermons and addresses, delivered, according to the attributions, from the pulpits of Medina and Kufa across Ali's caliphate and before it. Their range is the book's glory: cosmological openings on the creation of the heavens, of the ant and the locust and the peacock, described with a naturalist's wonder as proofs of the Maker; the piercing sermon known as al-Shiqshiqiyya, in which Ali reflects on the caliphates that preceded his own; laments over the killing of governors and the failures of his supporters; and the sustained meditations on death, the world's deceptions and the fear of God that made the collection a manual of piety.
The second register holds the letters and documents, among them treaties, instructions to tax collectors on gentleness with the taxed, and the long letter to Malik al-Ashtar on his appointment over Egypt, a charter of just administration, counselling mercy toward subjects, vigilance over officials, care for the poorest and suspicion of flatterers, that has been cited in modern constitutional and human-rights discourse.
The third register gathers hundreds of short sayings, aphorisms on patience, knowledge, friendship and the tongue, many of which passed into everyday Arabic. Through all three registers the recurring voice is that of power held reluctantly and weighed against justice.