WELCOME AGAIN, O RAMADAN! (II)

But it so happens that the poverty of these parts is so confounded that people are just so hungry they are just so confused. There is no indication that the country plans to do anything soon to address the poor peoples’ wretched situation in the form of social security. Before that is done, we need […]

But it so happens that the poverty of these parts is so confounded that people are just so hungry they are just so confused. There is no indication that the country plans to do anything soon to address the poor peoples’ wretched situation in the form of social security. Before that is done, we need to give, and admonish.

 

Therefore, let us today narrate the oft-repeated story (see, for example, islamicawakening.com; scribd.com; salaf-us-saalih.com; almaghrib.org) of a wealthy man called Ibn Jad’aan who lived more than a century ago. He had many camels, then the ultimate wealth of the Arabs. One day as he was inspecting his camels, he noticed a particularly healthy she-camel whose udder was so full of milk. He immediately remembered his poor neighbour and his family who hardly had anything to eat. So he said to himself that he would give the she-camel out and her calf as Sadaqa (charity) to this neighbour.

He took her along with her calf and knocked on the door of the neighbour and told him to accept it as a gift from him. The neighbour’s face broke into happiness and gratitude, but he was so overwhelmed he was unable to utter anything. The poor family tremendously benefitted from the she-camel’s milk.

As usual with Bedouin nomads, after the spring had passed, the dry summer would come with its drought and they would have to begin looking far and wide for water, which was usually found in the duhool (plural of duhul, or ‘holes in the earth’), situated underground leading to water traps underneath the ground. Ibn Jad’aan and his three sons found one such waterhole. He entered into it so as to bring some water to drink while the sons waited outside. However he did not return. They waited for him for three days and finally became hopeless. They thought he might have been stung by a snake and had died. As it so happened, they were keen on his demise for their greed to take over his wealth.

So they returned home and divided their father’s wealth. Then they remembered the she-camel. They went to the neighbour and asked for its return, promising to give him another camel in place of it, or they would take it by force. The neighbour said that he would report them to their father. They laughed and informed him that he had died. He inquired as to how and where Ibn Jad’aan had died and they told him.

The neighbour said: “Please take me there! And take your she-camel. I don’t want anything from you in return!” They took him to the waterhole and left him there. He brought a rope, tied it to a tree outside the hole and to his waist, and then stepped into the hole crawling on his back. Eventually the smell of moisture became closer, and then all of sudden he heard the sound of a man by the water groaning and moaning.

He went closer and closer towards this sound in the darkness, putting his hands out all over, until his hand fell on a man. It was Ibn Jad’aan! He checked his breath and found he was still breathing after one week! He pulled him out slowly, covering his eyes so as to protect him from the sudden sunlight. He carried him to his house and nurtured him back to health without telling the sons. After Ibn Jad’aan’s strength had returned, the neighbour asked him: “Tell me, by Allah, how come one week underground and you didn’t die?”

“I will tell you something very strange,” Ibn Jidaan said, “I got lost, so I said to myself I had better stay close to the water. So I started to drink from it, but hunger had no mercy and water alone does not suffice. For three days, my hunger intensified. While I was lying on my back weak from hunger, I surrendered myself to Allah and put all my affairs in His hands. All of a sudden, I felt the warmth of milk pouring into my mouth. It was dark, and did not know where it was coming from. I drank from it until my hunger abated! This occurred three times a day. But then as suddenly as it had come, the milk stopped these last two days, and I didn’t know what happened. My hunger then returned.”

His neighbour, full of surprise, said: “If you know the reason why the milk stopped you will be amazed! Your sons thought you had died and they came to me and took away the she-camel which Allah was giving you from its milk! But Allah saved you for your original kindness.”

The Prophet also used to say: “Every morning, two angels would make this clarion prayer: O ALLAH! Increase the wealth of the one who gives, and decrease the wealth of the miser.”

In another Hadith, the Prophet tells us about the Ash’aris, a clan in Medina during his time. Whenever their provisions ran low in peacetime or in war, the Ash’aris would gather all their community’s worldly wealth in one place and add it all up and then divide it equally between the number of households in their community. The Prophet said of the Ash’aris: ‘they are of me, and I am of them’. The communists were later in 1917 to steal this exact same idea of 1400 years ago and call it ‘collectivisation’. Only difference was that the Ash’aris did it voluntarily, without prompting or coercion.

So, as you prepare to enjoy your iftar, which may include chicken, let us cap with this story from the book Gems and Jewels by Abdul-Malik Mujahid:

“A story has been related about a man who once sat with his wife to eat a barbecued chicken. A beggar then knocked on the door, and when the man went to answer it, he scolded the beggar and drove him away. It was the Will of Allah that afterwards that same man should become poor and should be bereft of all material possessions; because of his poverty, he had to divorce his wife. She married another man, and one day she was sitting with him to eat a barbecued chicken, when someone knocked on the door. The man said to his wife, ‘Give this chicken to the man at the door.’ When she opened it, she was shocked to realise that it was her first husband. She gave him the chicken and returned, crying. Her husband asked her what was the matter, and she informed him that the man at the door was her previous husband. She then told him about the story of the beggar that her previous husband had scolded and sent away, and her husband said, ‘By Allah, I was that beggar.’”

So, as you sit before that barbecued chicken with your wife during tonight’s iftar, remember that perhaps the most delicious thing your neighbour will ever have is kunu, or (im)pure water. So guard yourself against his marrying your wife, she of the barbecued chicken! Give him that chicken! Allah Ya karba!