Ihyaaud Deen An Effort to Revive Deen in Totality
Hazrat Ali bin Ma’bad (rahimahullah) was a Muhaddith. He says:
I was living in a rented house, and I once wrote something which I needed to dry quickly. The house walls were made of mud, and when I intended to scrape off a little mud to dry up the ink, I thought to myself, “This house is not mine, but taken on rent (i.e. I have rented the home to stay in it, not to take sand from the walls – so I cannot scrape the walls without the owner’s permission).”
Then another thought crossed my mind that taking just a little sand, what harm will it cause, as sand is something insignificant (and does not really have a lot of value). I then scraped a little sand from a wall and used it.
That night, while asleep, I saw a person in my dream who admonished me saying, “Tomorrow, on the Day of Qiyaamah, you will realise the consequence of your statement ‘Sand is something insignificant (and does not really have a lot of value).’”
Note:
The meaning of the statement “Tomorrow you will realise the consequence of your statement” refers to the condition of different people who will be dealt with differently in the Hereafter, according to the level of their taqwa and piety. The high rank of the Muhaddith demanded that he should have been particular even about a small amount of sand; though for a common man it was something within permissible limits.
(Fazaa’il-e-A’maal [Urdu] pg. 59)
