THE HOLY PROPHET (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his immaculate progeny) AND THE SOUR GRAPES
One day a poor man brought a bunch of grapes to the holy prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his immaculate progeny) as a gift. The holy prophet (pbuhf) ate one, two, three and then the whole bunch of grapes by himself. He did not offer grapes to anyone present. The poor man who brought those grapes was very pleased and left. One of the companions asked, O prophet of Allah! How come you ate all the grapes by yourself and did not offer to any one of us present? The holy Prophet (pbuhf) smiled and said, I ate all the grapes by myself because the grapes were sour. If I would have offered you, you might have made funny faces and that would have hurt the feelings of that poor man. I thought to myself that its better that I eat all of them cheerfully and please the poor man. I did not want to hurt the feelings of that poor man. Such were the manners of this most noble prophet of Allah. One day the holy Prophet of Allah was going somewhere when he met a man selling a camel. The holy Prophet (pbuhf) liked the camel and bought it at an agreed price. The holy Prophet (P) did not have money on him at the time so he asked the camel dealer to follow him up to his home and he would pay him his due. The man agreed. As they were going, another man approached and asked the camel dealer if he was selling his camel and for how much. He said that he had already sold the camel to the holy Prophet for such an amount. This man offered him better price and he agreed to sale the camel to him. The holy Prophet said to the camel dealer that since he had already sold the camel to him, it was wrong to break the agreement just like that. The man denied making any agreement. Whilst all this was going on, the passers by stopped and wondered as to what was going on. The Apostle of Allah explained exactly what happened. Companions: O Prophet of Allah, do you have any witnesses to support your claim? Holy Prophet (P): No. We have no witnesses as there was no one present when the agreement was made. Companions: Sorry, we dont think we can help you. How can we be sure who is telling the truth and who is lying? A very close companion of the holy Prophet (probably hazrat Ali (a.s.) or hazrat Abu Dharr) happened to pass by and saw the holy Prophet (pbuhf) surrounded by the people. On inquiring about it, came to know what happened. Hazrat Ali (a.s.): The Prophet (pbuhf) of Allah is telling the truth and the camel dealer is lying. The holy Prophet: But you were not present when the agreement was made. So how can you judge without being there? Hazrat Ali (a.s.): O Prophet of Allah, you said that there is Allah and we believed you, even though we havent seen Him. You told us that Quran was the word of Allah and we believed you. You told us about angels, heaven and hell and we believed you, even though we havent seen all these things. How is it possible that you would lie about such petty thing? The moral of the story is that there were some sahabas who walked, sat and ate with the Prophet of Allah, but did not grasp his inner personality and at the same time there were also some other companions of the holy Prophet who understood him physically as well as spiritually. Islam has put a lot of emphasis on enjoining good and prohibiting evil. Prophet Muhammad (pbuhf) has given a beautiful example which is as follows. Imagine there are people travelling in a boat. One of the passengers starts to drill a hole right where he is sitting. What will be the reaction? Everyone will start making noise and stop him from carrying on what hes doing. Suppose he says mind your own business, I am drilling a hole in my own place and who are you to stop me? Obviously, everyone will say, that is true. But when the water starts coming into the boat, it will not only drown you, but we all are going to sink. Similarly, when you see sins committed in your community, society or nation, and if you turn a blind eye, you all will be answerable to God Almighty, liable for His punishment and for spreading the corruption. When you see something wrong happening in your community or the society, it is obligatory to confront it and stop it. If you have power to speak out against the evil committed, it will be the jihad with your tongue. If you have no power to speak but you can write against it, it will be jihad with your pen. If you can neither speak nor write, but have money to pay someone who can do the job for you, it will be jihad with your wealth. If you cannot do anything then have hatred towards such acts and this is the weakest form of jihad. The holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuhf) _________________________________________________________________ Are you using the latest version of MSN Messenger? Download MSN Messenger 7.5 today! http://messenger.msn.co.uk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/TXWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest". Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamcity/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
