Ihyaaud Deen An Effort to Revive Deen in Totality
Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) had a slave who used to give him a portion of his daily wages after working. Once, he brought him some food and Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) ate a morsel from it.
The slave said, “Everyday, you ask me from which source I acquired the wealth, but today, you did not ask me.” Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) replied, “Due to being extremely hungry, I did not ask you. However, tell me how you acquired this food.”
The slave said, “Before I accepted Islam, I practiced fortune-telling. During those days, I met some people for whom I practiced some of my magic. They promised to pay me for that later on. Today, I happened to pass by those people while they were busy in a wedding function. When they saw me, they gave me this food as payment for the past service that I had done for them.”
Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) exclaimed, “You could have destroyed me through feeding me this type of food!” He then inserted his fingers into his throat to try to vomit the morsel he had swallowed, but could not do so, as his stomach had been quite empty. Somebody suggested to him to drink water to his fill and then try to vomit the morsel. He therefore sent for a large cup of water and kept on drinking water and forcing it out, until the morsel was vomited out.
Somebody said, “May Allah Ta‘ala have mercy on you! You put yourself through all this difficulty just for a single morsel!” To this, he replied, “I would have forced it out even if I had to lose my life in the process. I have heard Nabi (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam) saying, ‘The flesh that is fed by haraam food – the fire of Jahannam is better for it.’ I therefore feared that no portion of my body should receive nourishment from this morsel.”
Note: Many stories of this nature have been reported about Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) because he was of a very cautious nature. A narration in Bukhaari states that the people paid the slave because something that he foretold had come to pass. Although it cannot be said that all the wealth of the slave was unlawful, Hazrat Abu Bakr (radhiyallahu ‘anhu) exercised caution because of the element of doubt.
(Fazaa’il-e-A’maal [Urdu] pg. 57)
