Ihyaaud Deen An Effort to Revive Deen in Totality
Incident regarding the Amazing Manner in which Allah Ta‘ala Provides for His Creation
There was once a notorious robber among the Kurds (the name of a tribe in the Middle East). He narrates his own story:
Once, I was going with my gang of robbers with the intention of robbing and stealing. We stopped to take rest at a place where we saw three date-palms, of which two were laden with fruit, but the third was dry and barren.
Time and again, a sparrow came to one of the green trees, took some fresh dates in its beak, and flew across to the dry palm. Observing this, we were greatly surprised.
After I had counted ten trips of the bird, it occurred to me that I should climb the tree and see what it was doing with the dates. I climbed up to the top of the palm and saw a blind snake lying there with its mouth wide open. The sparrow had been putting fresh dates into the mouth of this blind snake!
The sight (of a sparrow feeding a blind snake) awakened my conscience and I was moved to tears. I cried unto Allah Ta‘ala, “O Allah! When this snake, which Your Rasul (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam) has commanded us to kill, became blind, You appointed a sparrow to provide sustenance for it, and I, who am Your slave and a believer in tauheed, have been destined to loot the people!”
At this, I heard a voice speaking to me, from within my heart, saying, “The door towards repentance is open to everybody at all times.”
Instantly, I broke the sword with which I used to rob the people, and (in the frenzy of remorse,) I began to throw dust on my head. I wept and cried unto Allah Ta‘ala saying, “Forgive me, O Lord!” I heard a voice from the unseen in my heart saying, “We have forgiven you! We have forgiven you!”
After a short while, I re-joined my companions. They wanted to know what had happened to me. I said, “I was led astray and was estranged from my Lord. Now I have made peace with Him.” I then told them the whole story. They said, “We also will make peace with our Lord,” and they broke their swords as well.
We abandoned all our looted property there, put on ihraam (the white garb of a pilgrim), and set out to Makkah Mukarramah for Hajj.
After travelling for three days, we reached a village where we came across an old, blind lady. She asked, “Is there any Kurd among you, so-and-so by name? (when saying this, she mentioned my name). On being told that there was, she took out some garments and said, “My son died three days ago and these clothes were his property. Since he passed away, every night I am seeing Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam) in a dream, commanding me to give these garments to such-and-such a Kurd!’ I took the garments from her and we all put them on.
In this incident, there are two aspects with a deep moral lesson. Firstly, the divine arrangement for providing sustenance to the blind snake and, secondly, the gift of garments granted by Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam) to the Kurd.
When Allah Ta‘ala wants to favour someone, it is quite easy for Him to create means to that end, as it is He alone Who creates all means, both of prosperity and adversity, and it was by virtue of their sincere repentance that these Kurds were granted the gift of garments from Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam), which is in itself a great honour and a worthy privilege.
Moreover, the story illustrates how sometimes, Allah Ta‘ala grants favours to a needy person through a speedy death! We have heard about many such cases in which a dying man made a will leaving a portion of his property to a particular person.
