Husn al-Dhan Part 3: Do not be hasty in forming conclusions

وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌ ۚ إِنَّ السَّمْعَ وَالْبَصَرَ وَالْفُؤَادَ كُلُّ أُولَٰئِكَ كَانَ عَنْهُ مَسْؤُولًا

Wa-lā taqfu mā laysa laka bihi ʿilm; inna as-samʿa wa-l-baṣara wa-l-fuʾāda kullu ulāʾika kāna ʿanhu masʾūlā.

Do not follow blindly what you do not know to be true: ears, eyes, and heart, you will be questioned about all these.

Sūrat al-Isrāʾ 17:36. Translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. [1]

During preparations for the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ﷺ sent ʿAlī, al-Zubayr, and al-Miqdād to intercept a woman carrying a letter. They recovered it and brought it back. It was from Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa, giving people in Mecca information about the Prophet’s intentions.

The Prophet asked Ḥāṭib what this meant. He replied:

يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ، لَا تَعْجَلْ عَلَيَّ.

Yā Rasūla Allāhi, lā taʿjal ʿalayya.

Messenger of God, do not be hasty with me.

Reported by ʿAlī; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3007. [2]

He explained that other emigrants had relatives in Mecca who could protect their families. He was allied to Quraysh but lacked the protection of blood ties. He had hoped that doing them a favor would secure protection for his family. He denied having acted out of disbelief or abandonment of Islam.

The Prophet answered:

لَقَدْ صَدَقَكُمْ.

Laqad ṣadaqakum.

He has indeed told you the truth.

Reported by ʿAlī; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3007. [2]

ʿUmar then asked permission to execute Ḥāṭib as a hypocrite. The Prophet refused, recalling that Ḥāṭib had fought at Badr and speaking of God’s forgiveness for those who had taken part. [2]

The letter was real. So was the need to hear its author. The discovery established what Ḥāṭib had done; it did not settle every question about why he had done it or what he believed.

His plea asks for time to explain before a judgment becomes final. That is a difficult request when the evidence looks alarming. We may feel that the act has already told us everything we need to know. A person’s explanation can then sound like an attempt to escape consequences before we have even heard it.

The seriousness of the disclosure remains part of the story. Another narration in al-Bukhārī connects the incident with the opening of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah, which rebukes secretly extending friendship to hostile opponents. The Prophet’s acceptance of Ḥāṭib’s explanation does not turn the letter into a permissible act. It prevents the act from being treated as proof that he had abandoned his faith. [3]

This distinction matters whenever we have to judge conduct. An action may be established while the motive we attach to it remains an inference. The more serious the matter, the more carefully we need to distinguish the two.

The verse at the beginning places responsibility on hearing, sight, and the heart. Ibn Kathīr explains it as a prohibition against speaking without knowledge. Among the explanations he preserves is the warning against accusing someone of something we do not know. Our responsibility extends to the claims we make about what we have heard and seen. [1]

An alarming discovery can create its own momentum. We hear an interpretation, repeat it, and soon begin to experience it as certainty. When other people agree with us, it becomes harder to notice where the evidence ends and our interpretation begins.

Ḥāṭib’s situation gives us reason to slow that movement. He described a concern for his family that the letter by itself could not explain. Listening allowed that concern to be considered. The Prophet assessed what he said and affirmed its truthfulness.

For us, hearing an explanation does not require accepting it without examination. It requires giving the person a real opportunity to speak and allowing what they say to affect our judgment. If we have already decided that every answer will be an excuse, we are asking a question whose answer we have made irrelevant.

This is a practical demand of ḥusn al-ẓann (حُسْنُ الظَّنِّ), thinking well of others. It calls for care when we move from an account of someone’s behavior to a conclusion about their character or faith. A fair judgment can acknowledge harm and still remain open to information that changes our understanding of the person responsible.

In an ordinary disagreement, that may begin with asking someone to explain what happened and then listening through to the end. We may still need to correct the behavior, repair harm, or set a boundary. The explanation can nevertheless change the way we understand what has happened and the way we respond.

The restraint is especially important when we have authority over someone. Our interpretation may affect their reputation, their work, or their place in a community. The person being judged has more at stake than our willingness to reconsider a first impression.

“Do not be hasty with me.” There is a person behind that request. Before we turn what someone has done into a final account of who they are, we owe them a hearing—and we owe our own judgment the discipline of knowing its limits.

Sources

1. Qurʾān 17:36 and Ibn Kathīr’s commentary. This verse provides the ethical anchor for the reflection. Read the verse Read Ibn Kathīr
2. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3007, related by ʿAlī. The narrative preserves the report’s order: explanation, affirmation of truthfulness, ʿUmar’s request, and the response concerning Badr. English renderings are supplied here from the Arabic. Read the report
3. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4274, in the account of the conquest of Mecca, connects the incident with Qurʾān 60:1. For discussion of the forgiveness associated with Badr, see Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī, commentary on Bukhārī 4890; the promise is not permission to commit wrong. Read the parallel report Read Qurʾān 60:1 Read Ibn Ḥajar

The fly: humble or humbling?

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Bismi llāhi l-Raḥmāni l-Raḥīm.

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Ever Merciful.

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ ضُرِبَ مَثَلٌ فَاسْتَمِعُوا لَهُ ۚ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ لَنْ يَخْلُقُوا ذُبَابًا وَلَوِ اجْتَمَعُوا لَهُ ۖ وَإِنْ يَسْلُبْهُمُ الذُّبَابُ شَيْئًا لَا يَسْتَنْقِذُوهُ مِنْهُ ۚ ضَعُفَ الطَّالِبُ وَالْمَطْلُوبُ

Yā ayyuhā l-nāsu ḍuriba mathalun fa-stamiʿū lah. Inna lladhīna tadʿūna min dūni llāhi lan yakhluqū dhubāban wa-law ijtamaʿū lah. Wa-in yaslubhumu l-dhubābu shayʾan lā yastanqidhūhu minh. Ḍaʿufa l-ṭālibu wa-l-maṭlūb.

People, a parable is presented, so listen to it: those you invoke besides Allah will never create a fly, even if they all come together for it. And if the fly snatches anything from them, they cannot recover it from the fly. Weak are the seeker and the sought.

Sūrat al-Ḥajj, 22:73. Working translation. الآية 73

The Qur’an asks us to listen. Then it places before us a creature we usually try to brush away.

The ayat exposes the helplessness of those worshipped besides Allah. Even together, they cannot create a fly or recover what it takes from them. Its image also invites us to reflect on our own dependence. How easily we become impressed by power, including our own, while forgetting how limited it remains.

An old account preserved in al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī’s History of Baghdad brings that lesson into a ruler’s presence.

Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr was sitting when a fly began landing on his face. It returned repeatedly, until he became thoroughly irritated.

He asked who was at the door. When told that Muqātil ibn Sulaymān was there, he ordered that he be brought in.

“Do you know why Allah created flies?” the caliph asked.

“Yes,” Muqātil replied.

لِيُذِلَّ اللَّهُ بِهِ الْجَبَّارِينَ

Li-yudhilla llāhu bihi l-jabbārīn.

“So that Allah may humble tyrants through them.”

Al-Manṣūr fell silent. تاريخ بغداد ت بشار

The account leaves us with that silence. A man with authority over people had been reminded of the limits of his authority by a fly that would not stop returning. The answer gave him something to consider about himself.

We need not read the scholar’s reply as a claim to have explained every purpose for which flies exist. It points to one moral lesson: a small creature can expose an enormous illusion about ourselves.

We have been given abilities, opportunities, and sometimes authority. Yet none of these makes us independent of the One who gave them. We still need sleep. We still become thirsty. We depend on the functioning of bodies whose smallest workings we do not command.

Remembering this should affect the way we treat people.

The Prophet ﷺ described kibr (كِبْر, arrogance) in words that make this danger very clear:

الْكِبْرُ بَطَرُ الْحَقِّ وَغَمْطُ النَّاسِ

Al-kibru baṭaru l-ḥaqqi wa-ghamṭu l-nās.

“Arrogance is rejecting the truth and looking down on people.”

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 91a. Working translation of the concluding phrase. sunnah.com

This gives us something more useful than a vague instruction to “be humble.” It gives us a way to examine ourselves. Can I accept a true word from someone younger, poorer, less educated, or less influential than I am? Does another person’s lower position make their feelings easier for me to dismiss?

Humility makes room for their voice. It allows us to say, “I may have misunderstood. Tell me what happened.” It allows us to acknowledge a mistake without making the other person pay for having noticed it.

Perhaps we can carry three questions from the story into our day:

• Whose correction do I find hardest to accept, and why?
• Who receives the force of my irritation when something small goes wrong?
• Can the people under my authority disagree with me without fear of humiliation?

The next interruption may give us an opportunity to practise. We can pause before speaking, lower our voice, and listen to the person in front of us. If we have spoken harshly, we can return and apologize. These small acts give humility a place in our conduct.

A humble fly was enough to humble the limits of a caliph’s power. Remembering those limits may help us use our own power with greater mercy.

O Allah, help us recognize the truth when it reaches us, accept correction from whoever brings it, and treat the people entrusted to our care with gentleness.

Husn al-Dhan Part 2: Not defined by the worst mistake

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا يَسْخَرْ قَوْمٌ مِنْ قَوْمٍ عَسَىٰ أَنْ يَكُونُوا خَيْرًا مِنْهُمْ وَلَا نِسَاءٌ مِنْ نِسَاءٍ عَسَىٰ أَنْ يَكُنَّ خَيْرًا مِنْهُنَّ

Yā ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū, lā yaskhar qawmun min qawmin ʿasā an yakūnū khayran minhum, wa-lā nisāʾun min nisāʾin ʿasā an yakunna khayran minhunna.

Believers, let no group mock another: those mocked may be better than those who mock. And let no women mock other women, who may be better than they.

Qurʾān (الْقُرْآنُ, the Islamic scripture), Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt (سُورَةُ الْحُجُرَاتِ, “The Rooms”), 49:11, opening passage. Translation of the meaning. [1]

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb relates that a man named ʿAbd Allāh used to make the Prophet ﷺ laugh. The same account tells us that he had been punished for drinking. On another occasion, he was brought before the Prophet and punished again.

One of the men present called for God’s curse upon him, complaining about how often he was brought back for the same offense. The Prophet stopped him:

لَا تَلْعَنُوهُ، فَوَاللَّهِ مَا عَلِمْتُ إِلَّا أَنَّهُ يُحِبُّ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ.

Lā talʿanūhu; fa-wa-llāhi mā ʿalimtu illā annahu yuḥibbu Allāha wa-rasūlahu.

Do not curse him. By God, I know that he loves God and His Messenger.

Narrated by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (صَحِيحُ الْبُخَارِيِّ, al-Bukhārī’s authentic collection), 6780. Arabic wording: al-Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna (شَرْحُ السُّنَّةِ, “Commentary on Prophetic Tradition”), 2606, 10:337. English rendering from the Arabic. [2]

The account, preserved in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, ends with that affirmation. The man’s wrongdoing was known, and the consequence had been imposed. The Prophet also affirmed something good within him. His repeated failure had not erased his love for God and His Messenger. [2]

We can become so familiar with someone’s failure that we stop remembering anything else about them. Each new disappointment seems to confirm the judgment we have already made. Eventually, we may hear their name and think immediately of the thing they keep getting wrong.

The opening detail about ʿAbd Allāh making the Prophet laugh gives us reason to pause. The report preserves a human being whose life included more than the offense for which he was brought forward. The Prophet’s reply requires us to keep that fuller person in view.

This is a demanding form of ḥusn al-ẓann (حُسْنُ الظَّنِّ), thinking well of others. Sometimes we practice it by allowing an innocent explanation for something uncertain. Here the wrong action was established. A generous judgment meant giving proper weight to the good that remained alongside it.

The Qurʾānic verse at the beginning warns us against ridicule and contempt. Ibn Kathīr explains that the person being despised may have a higher standing before God and be more beloved to Him than the person looking down on them. That possibility calls for humility about our own judgment. [1]

We may know that someone has done wrong without knowing their whole life. We do not possess a complete account of their intentions, their struggles, or their standing before God. Even where action must be taken, there is more to a person than the conduct we are required to address.

Repeated failure can wear down our patience. We may have offered advice, accepted apologies, or hoped that this time something would change. Disappointment deserves an honest response. The difficulty begins when disappointment settles into contempt and we start treating the person as though nothing good could be true of them.

That change affects how we speak. A specific criticism becomes a permanent label. We stop describing what happened and begin making sweeping claims about who the person is. We may even feel that our own better conduct gives us permission to humiliate them.

There is a spiritual danger here for the one doing the correcting. Concern about another person’s wrongdoing can become entangled with satisfaction in our own position. The Qurʾānic warning directs our attention back to ourselves: we too remain answerable for the way we regard and treat people.

For a parent or teacher, this can mean addressing a repeated problem clearly while continuing to recognize a child’s efforts and strengths. In an adult relationship, it can mean naming harmful behavior and setting a necessary boundary while resisting a judgment that dismisses the whole person. Neither relationship is helped by pretending the problem has disappeared. Both need correction that remains truthful about the person’s capacity for good.

Remembering someone’s goodness asks something of our attention. When a familiar fault returns, we can take care with the words we choose. We can keep our criticism specific, offer help where it is appropriate, and pray for the person’s reform. Our disappointment need not decide the limits of their future.

ʿAbd Allāh’s story leaves us with the Prophet’s words about the love that was still there. We can remember those words when another person’s failure becomes so familiar that we can see little else. A serious fault deserves an honest response. The good within a person deserves honesty too.

Sources

1. Qurʾān 49:11 and Ibn Kathīr’s commentary. The verse is the ethical anchor for this reflection; the ḥadīth (حَدِيثٌ, Prophetic report) is not presented as its occasion of revelation. Read the verse. Read Ibn Kathīr.

2. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6780, narrated by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. The Arabic follows the transmitted variant with illā (إِلَّا, “except”) preserved by al-Baghawī in Sharḥ al-sunna 2606, 10:337. English rendering supplied here from the Arabic. Read Bukhārī. Read al-Baghawī.

Husn al-Dhan Part 1:Thinking Well of One Another

لَوْلَا إِذْ سَمِعْتُمُوهُ ظَنَّ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتُ بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ خَيْرًا وَقَالُوا هَٰذَا إِفْكٌ مُبِينٌ

Lawlā idh samiʿtumūhu ẓanna l-muʾminūna wa-l-muʾminātu bi-anfusihim khayran wa-qālū hādhā ifkun mubīn.

When you heard the lie, why did believing men and women not think well of their own people and declare, ‘This is obviously a lie’?

Sūrat al-Nūr (سُورَةُ النُّورِ, The Light), 24:12. Translation: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. [1]

The verse addresses a community in which an accusation had begun to circulate. People were speaking about someone else’s honor, passing on words whose truth they had not established. The Qurʾān (الْقُرْآنُ) asks them to examine their first response: why had they been so ready to receive the accusation, when they should have thought well of one another?

This is ḥusn al-ẓann (حُسْنُ الظَّنِّ), thinking well of others. It requires care with what we believe about people, especially when an incomplete account invites us to supply the rest. Ibn Kathīr explains the verse as a rebuke concerning the slander against ʿĀʾisha. The believers should have measured the accusation against what they knew of themselves and of her, rather than allowing rumor to become their judgment. [1]

Guarding another person’s honor

Among those asked about ʿĀʾisha was Zaynab bint Jaḥsh, another wife of the Prophet ﷺ. There was rivalry between them for his affection. When the Prophet asked what she knew or had seen, Zaynab answered idiomatically:

أَحْمِي سَمْعِي وَبَصَرِي، مَا عَلِمْتُ إِلَّا خَيْرًا.

Aḥmī samʿī wa-baṣarī; mā ʿalimtu illā khayran.

I safeguard my hearing and sight. I know nothing (about her) but good.

Zaynab bint Jaḥsh, in ʿĀʾisha’s account; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (صَحِيحُ الْبُخَارِيِّ, al-Bukhārī’s authentic collection), 4750. Translation from the Arabic. [2]

This means: I will not claim my ears heard or my eyes saw what they did not. She guarded her testimony. She would speak of what she knew, and what she knew was good. It is ʿĀʾisha herself who preserves this answer and acknowledges that Zaynab’s conscientious piety protected her during the ordeal. [2]

Rivalry can make a damaging story about another person easier to welcome. We may give it a hearing that we would refuse if it concerned someone dear to us. Zaynab’s answer asks something demanding of us: to remain fair when another person’s humiliation might seem to serve our own interests.

There is a weak chain narration about the same incident where Umm Ayyūb purportedly mentioned the slander circulating about ʿĀʾisha and Abū Ayyūb immediately rejected it. He asked her whether she herself would commit such an act. When she said no, he replied that ʿĀʾisha was better than she was. The lesson we can learn from it is to extend to another person the moral credibility you readily grant yourself.

Source: Ibn Isḥāq, preserved in Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, 2:302; also commentary on Qurʾān 24:12.  

At Tabūk, Kaʿb ibn Mālik’s absence became the subject of a conversation. He had failed to accompany the Prophet and his companions. When the Prophet asked about him, a man explained his absence by referring to Kaʿb’s fine garments and self-admiration. Muʿādh ibn Jabal objected to the remark and said:

مَا عَلِمْنَا عَلَيْهِ إِلَّا خَيْرًا.

Mā ʿalimnā ʿalayhi illā khayran.

We know only good of him.

Muʿādh ibn Jabal, in Kaʿb ibn Mālik’s account, transmitted by his son ʿAbd Allāh; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 4418. Translation from the Arabic. [3]

Kaʿb was not there to answer. Muʿādh refused to let an accusation about his character stand unchallenged. Yet Kaʿb’s own account later admits that he had no valid excuse: he had delayed preparing until the opportunity was gone. He spoke truthfully on his return and faced the consequences before his repentance was accepted. [3]

Muʿādh’s defense leaves that accountability intact. A failure does not give everyone else permission to invent its motive. We can acknowledge that something went wrong while remaining careful about what it tells us of the person who did it.

Receiving another person’s words

A different kind of misunderstanding appears in an account preserved by Ibn Abī Ḥātim about Imam al-Shāfiʿī and his student al-Rabīʿ. Visiting his teacher during an illness, al-Rabīʿ offered a prayer that literally meant:

قَوَّى اللَّهُ ضَعْفَكَ.

Qawwā llāhu ḍaʿfaka.

May God strengthen your weakness.

Al-Rabīʿ’s prayer, as reported by Ibn Abī Ḥātim. Literal translation from the Arabic. [4]

Al-Shāfiʿī pointed out that if his weakness were strengthened, it would kill him. Al-Rabīʿ explained that he had intended only good. His teacher reassured him:

أَعْلَمُ أَنَّكَ لَوْ شَتَمْتَنِي لَمْ تُرِدْ إِلَّا الْخَيْرَ.

Aʿlamu annaka law shatamtanī lam turid illā l-khayra.

I know that even if you insulted me, you would intend only good.

Al-Shāfiʿī, as reported by al-Rabīʿ through Abū Ḥātim and Ibn Abī Ḥātim. Translation from the Arabic. [4]

The student’s words had come out awkwardly. Al-Shāfiʿī understood the goodwill behind them and made that understanding clear.

This is a familiar test of any relationship. Someone’s words come out awkwardly while trying to express care, and we must decide how to receive them. If we know that person’s sincerity, that knowledge deserves a place in our judgment. One clumsy sentence need not outweigh a history of kindness.

Al-Shāfiʿī noticed the problem with the expression and addressed it. His reassurance allowed the student to be corrected without having his intention condemned. A teacher, parent, or colleague can do the same: explain what needs to change while recognizing the good someone was trying to do.

Thinking well of others calls for this care both in public and in private. In a conversation about an absent person, we can ask how much is actually known. When someone’s words trouble us, we can ask what they intended. Where a serious wrong has occurred, we can seek the facts and act justly without pretending to know everything in another person’s heart.

The Qurʾānic wording for “of one another” is literally “of themselves.” There is a tenderness in that expression. Another person’s honor belongs to a community whose honor we share. The generosity with which I ask to be understood places a responsibility on me to extend that generosity to someone else.

Most of us hope that people will remember our better intentions when our words fail us or our conduct needs correction. We can begin by offering that consideration ourselves, especially when the person whose reputation is in our hands is not present to speak.

Sources

1. Qurʾān 24:12 and Ibn Kathīr’s commentary on the verse. English verse translation: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. Qurʾānic text; Abdel Haleem’s translation; Ibn Kathīr’s commentary.

2. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4750, in ʿĀʾisha’s account of the slander. The report includes her acknowledgment of Zaynab’s rivalry and conscientious restraint. Read the report.

3. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4418, Kaʿb ibn Mālik’s account of Tabūk, his failure to join the expedition, and his repentance. Read the report.

4. Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī wa-manāqibuhu (آدَابُ الشَّافِعِيِّ وَمَنَاقِبُهُ, The Conduct and Virtues of al-Shāfiʿī), p. 209. This is an early biographical report, not a Prophetic ḥadīth (حَدِيثٌ, report). The transmission runs from Ibn Abī Ḥātim through his father Abū Ḥātim to al-Rabīʿ. The dialogue is translated here from the Arabic. Read the Arabic text.

The Jackal, the Lion, and the Seeker

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Bismi llāhi l-Raḥmāni l-Raḥīm.

“In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy!”

Sūrat al-Fātiḥah (سُورَةُ الْفَاتِحَةِ, “The Opening”), 1:1, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem.

هُوَ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضَ ذَلُولًا فَٱمْشُوا۟ فِى مَنَاكِبِهَا وَكُلُوا۟ مِن رِّزْقِهِۦ ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ ٱلنُّشُورُ

Huwa alladhī jaʿala lakumu l-arḍa dhalūlan fa-mshū fī manākibihā wa-kulū min rizqihi wa-ilayhi l-nushūr.

“It is He who has made the earth manageable for you—travel its regions; eat His provision—and to Him you will be resurrected.”

Sūrat al-Mulk (سُورَةُ الْمُلْكِ, “Dominion”), 67:15, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem.

Allah calls it His provision, but He tells us to walk through the earth. The walking does not make us independent of the Provider. It is one of the ways in which we receive what He provides.

Between “walk” and “eat His provision” lies an entire education in tawakkul (تَوَكُّل, trusting reliance upon Allah). The heart relies upon Allah; the body accepts responsibility. The servant knows that effort cannot compel a result, yet also knows that trust is not an excuse to bury the abilities Allah has given.

The following teaching story is a literary retelling woven from several older and later sources. The names have been removed so that we may first meet its question within ourselves.

The Jackal, the Lion, and the Seeker:

A seeker once approached his teacher with a question that had troubled him for years.

“Master,” he said, “teach me the secret of rizq (رِزْق, provision). I know that the provision of every creature is known to Allah, yet I do not understand how reliance upon Him and human effort belong together.”

The teacher looked at him for a long moment.

“Travel a day’s journey beyond the town,” he said, “until you reach the rocky valley at the end of the old road. Remain there, observe carefully, and do not return until something has taught you about provision.”

The seeker obeyed.

After travelling the appointed distance, he entered a lonely valley where thorn trees grew far apart and the earth was dry and stony. Beneath one of the trees he noticed a jackal.

When he came closer, he saw that the animal had lost two of its legs. The wounds had healed long ago, leaving only scarred stumps. The jackal could drag itself a little way, but it could neither chase prey nor travel far in search of food.

The seeker wondered, “How has this creature remained alive? It cannot hunt. It cannot reach another valley. Who brings its provision here?”

He concealed himself nearby and waited.

Toward evening, a roar shook the valley. The seeker’s heart pounded. He climbed the nearest tree and hid among its branches.

A lion emerged from the bushes, dragging the body of an animal it had killed. It settled beneath the tree, tore into the flesh, and ate until it was satisfied. Then it rose and disappeared into the darkness, leaving part of the carcass behind.

The disabled jackal dragged itself slowly toward the remains and ate.

The seeker watched in astonishment.

“The One who sends a lion to feed a helpless jackal can surely feed me,” he thought. “Why should I exhaust myself pursuing what has already been written? My rizq will reach me wherever I am.”

He descended from the tree, found a shaded place, and sat down to wait.

One day passed, but no food came.

A second day passed. His hunger sharpened, but he told himself, “This is a test of my trust.”

By the third day his mouth was dry and his limbs trembled. Still he remained where he was.

Several more days passed. He became so weak that he could barely raise his head. At last, fearing that he would die of thirst, he dragged himself toward the sound of running water.

He found a stream and drank deeply. The cold water revived him, but it could not satisfy his hunger.

As he sat beside the stream, he saw something floating toward him: a small basket woven from broad leaves and tied with fibres. He reached into the water and pulled it ashore.

Inside was a sweet, fragrant paste of almonds, honey, cream, sugar, and the perfume of roses. It appeared to be a rare kind of halwa.

Tears filled his eyes.

“My Lord has not forgotten me,” he whispered.

He ate and felt strength returning to his body.

The following day another leaf-basket floated downstream. The same delicious paste lay inside. Another arrived on the day after that, and then another. For several days he ate from these packages and gradually recovered.

Certain that he had witnessed a miracle of provision, he became curious about its source.

“Perhaps one of Allah’s hidden servants lives upstream and prepares this food for me,” he thought. “I must discover where it comes from.”

He began walking against the current. For several days he followed the stream through valleys, gardens, and cultivated fields. Each day a package floated past him, and each day he ate from it.

Eventually he reached a magnificent palace surrounded by walls and gardens. The stream passed beneath one wall and emerged from the palace grounds.

The seeker hid among the trees and watched.

Early the following morning, servants gathered around a marble bathing terrace. A princess entered and was bathed in milk and perfumed water. Her attendants then covered her skin with a thick preparation of crushed almonds, cream, honey, sugar, and scented oils.

When the treatment was complete, they scraped the used paste from her body. No longer the pure and fragrant mixture with which they had begun, it was now mingled with the water, oils, and impurities washed from her skin. The attendants gathered the residue, wrapped it in leaves, and threw it into the stream.

The seeker watched the familiar package float away.

His stomach turned.

This was the “heavenly halwa” he had been eating.

He remembered the healthy limbs with which Allah had created him, the intelligence with which He had honoured him, and the opportunities he had abandoned while waiting to be fed. Ashamed of the passivity he had chosen, he returned to his teacher and related everything that had happened: the disabled jackal, the lion, his decision to wait, his near starvation, the floating food, and the discovery at the palace.

The teacher listened without interrupting.

When the seeker had finished, the teacher said, “You asked Allah to teach you the secret of rizq, and He placed two creatures before you. One was genuinely helpless. The other possessed strength. One could only receive; the other went out, struggled, obtained provision, and became the means by which another creature was fed.

“Why did you choose to see yourself in the jackal?”

The seeker lowered his head.

“Do not misunderstand me,” the teacher continued. “There is no shame in receiving help when one truly needs it. The jackal had lost its legs. It did not choose its incapacity, and it used what little strength remained to crawl toward the food. It was not beneath you because it received.

“But you had not lost your legs. You had hands, intelligence, memory, speech, and the ability to plan. You discarded gifts the jackal had never possessed and called that abandonment tawakkul. The jackal did what it could. You chose to do less than you could.”

The seeker began to weep.

“And you also misunderstood the lion,” said the teacher. “The lion hunted by instinct. Perhaps it did not even intend to feed the jackal; it merely left what it no longer wanted. You are capable of something higher.

“A human being can work with intention, seek what is lawful, feed another before eating, and give from what is loved rather than from unwanted remains. A human being can protect the dignity of the one who receives. A human being can plant an orchard whose fruit will feed people not yet born; teach a skill that allows a family to support itself; establish a school, a clinic, or a waqf; organize a community so that the weak are not forgotten; and turn one act of provision into a continuing mercy.

“If a lion, acting without moral knowledge, can become the means by which one disabled creature eats, what should be expected from a human being who recognizes hunger, understands responsibility, and knows that Allah sees?”

The seeker remained silent.

“You were not created merely to imitate the lion,” the teacher said. “You were called to become better than it—not stronger in violence, but greater in conscious mercy. Do not make yourself worse than the jackal by refusing the capacities Allah entrusted to you. The jackal was patient in an incapacity it did not choose. You manufactured incapacity while still possessing the means to serve.

“You wanted the provision of the jackal without accepting the responsibility that came with your human gifts. The shame was not that you received; every person must sometimes receive. It was that, while able to seek and serve, you chose dependence and then mistook another person’s discarded residue for a special honour.”

Then the teacher’s voice softened.

“Allah alone is the Provider. Your work does not compete with Him. Your hands, strength, employer, customer, field, shop, knowledge, and opportunities are themselves part of His provision. Work while knowing that the result is His. Receive without shame when you genuinely need help. Give without humiliating anyone when He places something in your hands.

“The highest understanding of rizq is not merely to ask, ‘Will Allah feed me?’ It is also to ask, ‘Whom might Allah intend to feed through me?’”

The seeker returned to the world of work. But he no longer worked only to accumulate for himself. He understood that ability was an amānah (أَمَانَة, a trust), livelihood carried responsibility, and every blessing placed in his hands contained the possibility of becoming another person’s provision.

He had gone into the wilderness asking how rizq would reach him.

He returned asking how he might become part of Allah’s answer to someone else’s prayer.

The Bird Does Not Wait in Its Nest

لَوْ أَنَّكُمْ كُنْتُمْ تَوَكَّلُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ حَقَّ تَوَكُّلِهِ لَرُزِقْتُمْ كَمَا تُرْزَقُ الطَّيْرُ تَغْدُو خِمَاصًا وَتَرُوحُ بِطَانًا

Law annakum kuntum tatawakkalūna ʿalā Allāhi ḥaqqa tawakkulihi la-ruziqtum kamā turzaqu l-ṭayru, taghdū khimāṣan wa-tarūḥu biṭānan.

“If you truly relied upon Allah, He would provide for you as He provides for birds: they leave hungry and return full.”

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 2344; working translation.

The bird leaves.

It does not know which branch will hold its food. It possesses no contract guaranteeing that worms will appear, no warehouse of grain, and no map of tomorrow’s provision. Yet at dawn it opens its wings.

Its movement is not the opposite of reliance. Its movement is the form its reliance takes.

Tawakkul is not confidence that my plan must succeed. It is confidence in Allah while I fulfil the responsibilities He has placed before me. The limbs work; the heart does not worship the work. The servant takes the means without mistaking the means for the Provider.

Better Than the Lion

To say that the human being should become “better than the lion” is not a boast about belonging to the human species. It is a moral calling. Our greater capacities become evidence for us only when we use them well; otherwise, they become evidence against us.

The lion in the story leaves scraps. A human being can offer what is good.

The lion responds through instinct. A human being can act through intention.

The lion feeds one animal on one evening. A human being can grow food, teach a livelihood, establish a continuing charity, repair an unjust system, or organize a community so that thousands are fed.

The lion cannot ask whether the recipient’s dignity has been protected. A human being must.

The lion cannot turn provision into education, opportunity, independence, or a chain of generosity in which today’s recipient becomes tomorrow’s giver. A human being can.

Our task is therefore not to imitate the lion’s force, dominance, or violence. It is to surpass its accidental service through conscious compassion.

What This Story Does Not Mean: Not Worse Than the Jackal

The disabled jackal should not become a symbol of shame. Illness, disability, age, unemployment, disaster, oppression, and sudden need are not moral failures. Every human community needs people who know how to receive assistance without losing dignity, just as it needs people who know how to give without pride.

Nor does hard work guarantee wealth. People may labour faithfully and remain poor because of illness, exclusion, exploitation, war, caregiving duties, or circumstances beyond their control. The rebuke in this story is not directed at the poor; it is directed at the capable person who romanticizes a passivity he has freely chosen.

The jackal’s condition was real. The seeker’s chosen helplessness was not.

The warning is for the person who possesses the ability to act but uses religious language to escape responsibility. It is for the nafs (نَفْس, the lower self) that renames laziness “contentment,” poor preparation “trust,” avoidance “surrender,” and dependence upon people “dependence upon Allah.”

The person who genuinely cannot carry a burden deserves support. The person who can carry it but quietly places it on someone weaker needs awakening.

When Spirituality Becomes an Excuse

This story is not only about earning money. We become the waiting seeker whenever we ask Allah to repair through miracle what He has already given us the means and responsibility to address.

• We pray for knowledgeable children but do not make time to teach, read, listen, or model a life of learning.
• We ask for barakah in our work while neglecting planning, honesty, punctuality, and care.
• We pray for the poor but do not examine our consumption, wages, generosity, or the systems we help maintain.
• We ask Allah to heal relationships while refusing to apologize, listen, forgive, or change a harmful habit.
• We complain that no one serves the community while protecting our own time, comfort, knowledge, and resources from every demand.
• We ask for capable colleagues or leaders while leaving work for others that we ourselves could carry.

Duʿāʾ is not a substitute for responsibility. Action is not a substitute for duʿāʾ. The believer brings both together: need before Allah, movement within the world, and humility about the result.

Which Creature Have I Chosen?

• Where am I waiting for help while neglecting an ability Allah has already given me?
• Which responsibility have I renamed “trust in Allah” because I do not want its discomfort?
• Do the people who depend upon me receive my best, or only what remains after I have satisfied myself?
• When I help someone, do I protect that person’s dignity?
• Am I creating repeated dependence, or helping another person recover agency where that is possible?
• What knowledge, access, position, strength, money, or time has reached me that may actually be someone else’s rizq passing through my hands?
• If an animal acting by instinct can become a means of provision, what should conscious faith produce in me?

May Allah grant us hearts that rely upon Him without using reliance to escape responsibility.

May He protect those who genuinely need assistance from shame, neglect, and the cruelty of those who give with pride.

May He make our work lawful, our provision pure, our giving beautiful, and our abilities a source of ease for His creation.

May He teach us to leave the nest with the bird, to care for the injured without despising them, and to rise beyond the lion through intention, mercy, justice, and service.

And when someone asks Allah for help, may He sometimes honour us by allowing part of His answer to pass through our hands.

Āmīn (آمِينَ, O Allah, answer this prayer).

Source Note: A Story Woven from Several Traditions

The narrative above is a composite teaching story. It is not found as one continuous account in a classical Arabic or Persian source, and it should not be attributed in its entirety to either Ibrāhīm ibn Adham or Shaqīq al-Balkhī. Its parts can be traced to several distinct narratives.

The parallels below explain how the present reconstruction was made; they do not by themselves prove a direct line of borrowing from one text to the next.

1. Shaqīq al-Balkhī, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, and the Two Birds

The earliest source located for the central correction is Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Marwān al-Dīnawarī’s al-Majālasa wa-jawāhir al-ʿilm, report no. 3350. Al-Dīnawarī died in 333/944.

In that account, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham meets Shaqīq al-Balkhī in Mecca and asks how his spiritual course began. Shaqīq says that while crossing a wilderness he saw a bird with both wings broken. A healthy bird arrived carrying a locust and placed it in the injured bird’s beak. Shaqīq concluded that the God who provided for the injured bird could provide for him wherever he was, so he abandoned earning and occupied himself with worship.

Ibrāhīm corrects him: why did he not choose to be the healthy bird that fed the afflicted one? He then invokes the Prophetic teaching:

الْيَدُ الْعُلْيَا خَيْرٌ مِنَ الْيَدِ السُّفْلَى

Al-yadu l-ʿulyā khayrun mina l-yadi l-suflā.

“The upper hand is better than the lower hand.”

See Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1427–1428.

Shaqīq kisses Ibrāhīm’s hand and calls him his teacher. This account supplies the seeker, the mistaken abandonment of earning, and the instruction to become the creature that provides. It contains birds—not a lion, fox, or jackal—and contains no starvation, stream, halwa, palace, or princess.

Arabic text: al-Dīnawarī, al-Majālasa wa-jawāhir al-ʿilm, no. 3350, vol. 8, pp. 42–43.

2. Hujwīrī’s Lion and Lame Fox

An earlier Persian lion-and-fox account appears in ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī’s eleventh-century Kashf al-maḥjūb. It concerns Aḥmad Ḥammādī of Sarakhs, not Ibrāhīm or Shaqīq.

A lion kills one of Aḥmad’s camels. It tears the carcass apart and withdraws while foxes, wolves, jackals, and other animals eat. When a lame fox approaches, the lion waits until it too has eaten before taking something for itself. The lesson concerns īthār (إِيثَار, preferring others to oneself), not a man mistakenly imitating the fox.

English translation: al-Hujwīrī, The Kashf al-Maḥjūb, translated by R. A. Nicholson, pp. 193–194.

3. Saʿdī’s Disabled Fox and the Command to Become the Lion

The fullest classical source for the lion, disabled animal, mistaken passivity, near starvation, and forceful correction is Saʿdī’s Būstān, completed in 655/1257, chapter II on beneficence.

An unnamed dervish sees a fox without functioning hands or feet. A lion arrives carrying a jackal, eats it, and leaves enough for the fox. When this happens again, the dervish decides to wait for his own provision. He wastes away until little remains but veins, bones, and skin. A voice from the wall of the prayer-place rebukes him: be the ravening lion, not the crippled fox. Saʿdī tells him to obtain through his own effort, share with others, endure toil, and become the servant through whose existence people find ease.

This source explains a common animal confusion: the disabled creature is a fox; the jackal is the lion’s prey. Later retellings have transferred the jackal’s identity to the disabled animal.

Persian text: Saʿdī, Būstān, chapter II, story 17.

4. The Floating Halwa and the Princess’s Used Cosmetics

The river, leaf-wrapped food, palace, and princess belong to a separate story commonly called “The Food of Paradise.” The earliest printed form located during this research appears in Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah’s The Coronation Book of Oriental Literature (London, 1937), issued in the United States as The Book of Oriental Literature (Garden City, 1938). The tale is credited to “Ibn Amjed,” sometimes misread by optical character recognition as “Ibn Ahmed.”

Its protagonist is a fictional, poorly paid Baghdad seminary teacher called Mullah Ibrāhīm. Concluding that genuine faith means waiting for Allah to feed him directly, he leaves his work and sits beside a river. After approximately two days without food, a leaf-wrapped package floats toward him. Inside is what he believes to be Baghdad halwa made from sugar, almond paste, rose perfume, and other essences.

Similar packages arrive daily for months. He follows them upstream to the Silver Castle and, after a magical rescue involving a jinn named Adhem, asks the princess about the food. She explains that she bathes in milk, rubs her limbs with almond essence, sugar, and scented cosmetics, then removes the used mixture from her naked body, wraps it in leaves, and throws it into the river. What he had praised as heavenly halwa was discarded cosmetic and bathing residue.

The curious presence of a protagonist named Ibrāhīm and a jinn named Adhem may help explain how oral retelling eventually attached the halwa episode to Ibrāhīm ibn Adham. This is a plausible inference, not a claim made by the source.

Bibliographical record and scanned text: Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, ed., The Book of Oriental Literature (Garden City Publishing, 1938), “The Food of Paradise,” beginning on p. 30; 1937 British edition scan.

Idries Shah later reworked the tale in Tales of the Dervishes (1967), pp. 15–20. His protagonist is Yūnus son of Adam; the supposed halwa contains almond paste, rosewater, honey, and nuts; and the princess identifies it as cosmetic residue left after her bath in asses’ milk. Shah’s moral concerns the limits of human understanding: her discarded toilet preparation became his “Food of Paradise.” Shah attributes the story to “Halqavi,” but no independently identifiable earlier manuscript or secure pre-1937 version was located in this research.

Book information: Idries Shah, Tales of the Dervishes, “The Food of Paradise.”

5. Who Were Ibrāhīm ibn Adham and Shaqīq al-Balkhī?

Ibrāhīm ibn Adham was the older eighth-century ascetic associated with Balkh and later Syria; reports place his death between approximately 161 and 166 AH/778–83 CE. Shaqīq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Balkhī was his younger contemporary and is commonly dated to 194/810.

They were not father and son. Shaqīq’s own father was simply another man named Ibrāhīm. Early biographical sources identify Shaqīq as someone who transmitted from and kept company with Ibrāhīm ibn Adham. Early Sufi hagiography, particularly al-Sulamī, further remembers Shaqīq as having “taken the Path” from him. It is therefore reasonable to describe Shaqīq as Ibrāhīm’s younger companion, transmitter, and spiritual pupil, provided this is not mistaken for membership in a later formal Sufi order.

Biographical references: al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, biography of Shaqīq al-Balkhī; “Ebrāhīm b. Adham,” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

6. What Has Been Added in This Retelling?

The narrative at the beginning of this post intentionally joins the moral architecture of these separate stories. The teacher’s assigned journey, the single continuous sequence, the disabled jackal, and the return to the teacher after the palace episode are literary bridges. They are not details found together in one source.

The teaching that the human being should become better than the lion develops the older moral rather than quoting it. Saʿdī commands the hearer to become the lion who obtains and shares. The present retelling takes one further step: because a human being possesses moral intention, foresight, language, organization, and responsibility, the goal is not merely to copy the lion but to surpass instinctive or accidental provision through conscious mercy.

The language of the human being as khalīfah (خَلِيفَة, entrusted successor or steward) is likewise an interpretive frame, not wording found in the bird story, Saʿdī’s poem, or “The Food of Paradise.” The more immediate classical formulations are the “upper hand,” the healthy bird that feeds the injured one, and Saʿdī’s servant through whose existence other people find ease.

A teaching story may grow as it travels. But when it grows, honesty requires us to distinguish the inherited seeds from the branches we ourselves have added.

A Pinch of Ash and the Direction of the Heart

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm.

“In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy!”

Sūrat al-Fātiḥah (سُورَةُ الْفَاتِحَةِ, “The Opening”), 1:1, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem

ذَٰلِكَۖ وَمَن يُعَظِّمۡ شَعَٰٓئِرَ ٱللَّهِ فَإِنَّهَا مِن تَقۡوَى ٱلۡقُلُوبِ

Dhālika wa-man yuʿaẓẓim shaʿāʾira Allāhi fa-innahā min taqwā al-qulūb.

“All this [is ordained by God]: those who honour God’s rites show the piety of their hearts.”

Sūrat al-Ḥajj (سُورَةُ الْحَجِّ, “The Pilgrimage”), 22:32, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem

Taqwā (تَقْوَىٰ, God-consciousness) lives in the heart. We cannot photograph or weigh it. We cannot look inside another person and measure how much love, fear, gratitude, or surrender to Allah is present there.

Yet what is hidden does not remain entirely without a language. The heart speaks through our choices: through what we honor, what we neglect, what we defend, and what we gradually become embarrassed to be associated with. Sometimes something very small discloses the direction of something very great—a pinch of ash, for example.

A Conversation Between Teacher and Student

The story is commonly retold in a shortened form. In that version, someone asks the distinguished scholar of the Qur’an (الْقُرْآنُ, the Recitation), Mawlānā (مولانا, an honorific for a religious scholar) Ḥamīd al-Dīn Farāhī, why a man of such learning and education still attaches importance to keeping a beard. Farāhī is then said to answer with the image of dust thrown into the air to reveal the direction of the wind.

Iṣlāḥī’s published recollection differs at an important point. It was not a stranger mocking an “educated man,” but a serious conversation between Farāhī and one of his most accomplished students, Mawlānā Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī.

Iṣlāḥī recalled that a discussion arose about the religious importance attached to the beard. He was arguing that it did not possess the importance then being assigned to it. Farāhī spent some time explaining the relevant Prophetic reports, but Iṣlāḥī remained unconvinced. These reports include the instructions to trim the mustache and leave the beard recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (صَحِيحُ الْبُخَارِيِّ) and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (صَحِيحُ مُسْلِمٍ).

Farāhī then asked his student to suppose, for the sake of discussion, that the beard did not possess great religious importance in itself. Even so, could a small thing not disclose something much larger? When Iṣlāḥī asked how, Farāhī replied:

جس طرح راکھ کی ایک چٹکی اُڑا کر ہم ہوا جیسی عظیم الشان چیز کا پتہ چلا لیتے ہیں کہ اس کا رُخ کدھر ہے

Jis tarḥ rākh kī ek chuṭkī uṛā kar ham havā jaisī ʿaẓīm al-shān chīz kā patā chalā lete haiṅ kih us kā rukh kidhar hai.

Working translation: “Just as, by scattering a pinch of ash, we can discover which way something as great as the wind is moving…”

Ḥamīd al-Dīn Farāhī, as recalled by Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī

The wind is invisible and the ash is tiny, yet the movement of that ash reveals the direction of a force far greater than itself. Farāhī continued that the presence or absence of a beard could, in this sense, indicate which way a person’s inclination lay: toward Islam or toward what is non-Islamic.

Iṣlāḥī says that he fell silent after this reply. In the same recollection, he concluded that the beard could serve as a kind of “barometer” of a Muslim’s inward inclinations. It was not the whole heart, nor an infallible measurement of faith, but a possible indication of direction.

The Ash Does Not Create the Wind

Farāhī’s metaphor is precise. The ash does not create or control the wind, and it does not tell us everything about the weather. It cannot reveal the temperature, the humidity, the approaching clouds, or the possibility of rain. It tells us one thing: which way the wind is moving.

Similarly, an outward religious practice does not create taqwā. A person may display a religious appearance while his heart remains filled with pride, cruelty, dishonesty, or the hunger to be admired. That possibility does not make every outward practice meaningless. A sign is not the whole reality, but neither is it nothing.

The Qur’anic anchor at the beginning of this reflection comes from the rites of Ḥajj (الْحَجُّ, the pilgrimage). Its immediate context concerns the sacred observances of Allah, including the sacrificial animals. It should not be presented as though the verse were revealed about the beard, nor used by itself as a legal proof concerning it.

The verse gives us a broader principle: honoring what Allah has made worthy of honor can arise from the taqwā of the heart. The outward and the inward are not enemies. The outward may give expression to the inward, while the inward gives sincerity and meaning to the outward.

What This Story Does Not Mean

Farāhī’s image can easily be misused. It does not mean that every bearded man is pious, or that a man without a beard possesses no love for Allah or His Messenger ﷺ. People have different histories, levels of knowledge, health conditions, pressures, weaknesses, and understandings. A visible sign cannot disclose an entire human being to us.

The Qur’an itself gives the necessary balance only a few verses later:

لَن يَنَالَ ٱللَّهَ لُحُومُهَا وَلَا دِمَآؤُهَا وَلَٰكِن يَنَالُهُ ٱلتَّقۡوَىٰ مِنكُمۡۚ

Lan yanāla Allāha luḥūmuhā wa-lā dimāʾuhā wa-lākin yanāluhu al-taqwā minkum.

“It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches God but your piety.”

Sūrat al-Ḥajj (22), verse 37, quoted in part, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem

In verse 32, the Qur’an connects honoring Allah’s rites with the piety of hearts. In verse 37, it warns us that the outward substance itself does not reach Allah; what reaches Him is our piety. Both truths must be held together. Outward obedience without inward surrender can become performance, while claims of inward purity without concern for outward obedience can become self-deception.

Farāhī’s image should therefore be used as a mirror, not as a weapon. The moment I use it merely to inspect another man’s face, I may have missed its deepest lesson. The first question is not, “What does his appearance reveal about him?” It is, “What do my small choices reveal about me?”

When Education Is Mistaken for Distance

The popular form foregrounds Farāhī as an “educated man,” and that addition exposes a familiar assumption: education should make a person less attached to visible religious practices; sophistication should produce distance; and a learned person should no longer look too traditional, sound too religious, or appear too committed to inherited forms.

Farāhī’s own life quietly refuted that assumption. He was trained in the classical Islamic sciences, Persian, and Arabic. He also studied modern disciplines at Aligarh and learned Hebrew from Joseph Horovitz, which allowed him to engage the Torah in its original language. He later devoted his life to the Qur’an and to educating a new generation of scholars. His student Iṣlāḥī went on to apply Farāhī’s method in a complete Qur’anic commentary. These details are documented in the Farāhī Digital Archive’s biographical account.

Farāhī’s intellectual life does not support the assumption that serious learning requires embarrassment before the Sunnah (السُّنَّةُ, the normative Prophetic way). Education can broaden the mind, but it can also make the ego more sensitive to the approval of prestigious people. We begin to wonder what colleagues will think, whether we will still appear intelligent, whether people will regard us as old-fashioned, and whether a visible practice will make us look too religious.

Those questions may appear small, but thrown into the air they reveal a wind: the wind of prestige, the wind of cultural power, and the desire to be accepted by people whose approval we may have secretly placed above obedience.

This does not mean that everything inherited from our culture is Islamic, or that everything coming from outside Muslim societies is corrupt. Islam has never required us to reject beneficial knowledge, technology, medicine, organization, beauty, or wisdom because it came from elsewhere.

The issue is not whether something is old or new, Eastern or Western, traditional or modern. The issue is who decides what deserves our admiration. Do revelation and the Prophetic model educate our preferences, or do our preferences first submit to the surrounding culture and then search for religious arguments to justify themselves? That is where the ash begins to move.

The Ash We Throw Every Day

Most of us will never participate in a formal discussion with a scholar like Farāhī, but we throw pinches of ash into the air every day. When a meeting is scheduled at the time of prayer, the direction appears in which one we expect to move. When a child is embarrassed to mention Allah before friends, we should ask what taught that embarrassment. When a Muslim removes religious language from a public profile so that educated people will take him seriously, the choice reveals which gaze matters most.

A family may claim to value faith while reserving its greatest praise for wealth, titles, universities, and social status. Children will notice what is truly honored—and what they are being taught to worship. One person adopts a Sunnah only to be seen as righteous; another abandons it only to be seen as sophisticated. Their outward choices are opposite, but the hidden disease may be the same. Both are looking sideways and asking the crowd who they should become.

The most powerful winds are often the ones that call themselves “normal.”

A school also has a direction. Its prospectus may contain beautiful words about values, character, and faith, but its real direction appears in the small decisions of daily life. We see it in whether prayer is protected or squeezed between supposedly more important activities; whether the Qur’an is treated only as something to recite at ceremonies or as a source of authority and guidance; and whether students are helped to understand the Sunnah intelligently or taught to see visible religious practices as embarrassing remnants of another age.

Do we give children the intellectual confidence to be both thoughtful and faithful? There is also an opposite danger: a school may praise outward conformity while neglecting the character that gives it meaning. A boy’s beard may be praised while a cleaner is humiliated. A girl’s clothing may be inspected while dishonesty in examinations is quietly ignored. Students may be taught the correct appearance of religion while watching adults lie, gossip, bully, and compete for recognition. That, too, reveals the direction of the wind.

Good Islamic education does not force us to choose between form and spirit. It teaches form with wisdom and cultivates spirit with love. It shows children that obedience is not an enemy of intelligence, and that intelligence is not a license for arrogance.

Before Examining Other Faces

Farāhī’s image becomes spiritually useful only when I turn it toward myself:

• Which Sunnah do I call “small” mainly because it inconveniences my ego?
• Which religious practice do I display while betraying its meaning through my behavior?
• What part of my faith do I hide because I want to appear intelligent?
• What do I adopt merely because I want religious people to admire me?
• Does my work bend around my prayers, or do my prayers survive only in the gaps left by my work?
• If a pinch of ash were thrown across my spending, speech, clothing, friendships, ambitions, and digital life, which way would it drift: toward Allah, toward the approval of people, or toward whichever direction is easiest today?

These are uncomfortable questions, but the ash was never meant merely to settle on someone else’s face.

The wind cannot be seen, but its direction becomes visible when the ash rises. The heart is hidden, but its allegiances leave traces. A single outward act does not tell the whole story of a person, and we must never reduce human beings to one sign, one weakness, or one visible practice.

Yet we should also be suspicious when the nafs (نَفْسٌ, the lower self) insists that all small acts are insignificant. Lives are made from small acts, and identities are shaped by repeated choices. Love expresses itself through attention; loyalty becomes visible through preference; and taqwā, though rooted in the heart, seeks a language in the limbs.

May Allah fill our outward obedience with inward sincerity.

May He protect us from the hypocrisy that displays His signs without honoring their meaning, and from the arrogance that despises His signs while claiming purity of heart.

May He make us love His Messenger ﷺ without performance, follow him without embarrassment, and treat other people without pride or condemnation.

And when the ash of our daily choices is lifted into the air, may it reveal hearts traveling steadily toward Him.

Āmīn (آمِينَ, O Allah, answer this prayer).

Source Note

The account is narrated by Mawlānā Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī in his biographical introduction, “Muṣannif ke Mukhtaṣar Ḥālāt-e Zindagī” (مصنف کے مختصر حالاتِ زندگی, “A Brief Life of the Author”), included in Ḥamīd al-Dīn Farāhī’s Majmūʿah Tafāsīr-e Farāhī (مجموعۂ تفاسیرِ فراہی), translated by Iṣlāḥī (Lahore: Fārān Foundation, 1991), printed p. 17. The public digital scan of the volume currently jumps from printed p. 14 to printed p. 18, omitting pp. 15–17. A secondary Urdu transcription reproduces the passage and cites p. 17; the quoted wording therefore still cannot be collated against the missing scanned leaf itself.

The original recollection describes a discussion between Farāhī and Iṣlāḥī about the religious importance of the beard. It does not describe an unidentified person challenging Farāhī about why an “educated man” would support one. The metaphor also refers specifically to a pinch of ash—rākh kī ek chuṭkī—rather than ordinary dust.

The Prophetic instructions concerning trimming the mustache and leaving the beard are recorded, among other places, in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5892, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5893, and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 259a. The precise legal classification of the beard belongs to a fuller discussion of fiqh (فِقْهٌ, Islamic jurisprudence) and is not the subject of this reflection.

The Qur’anic anchor, Sūrat al-Ḥajj (22), verse 32, occurs in the context of the rites of Ḥajj. It is used here for its broader teaching about the relationship between honoring Allah’s rites and the piety of the heart, not as an independent legal proof concerning the beard.