How much would you pay for a dead goat?

By Mawlana Junayd Makda Sahib

How much would you pay for a dead goat?

Sayyiduna Jabir Ibn Abdullah رضي الله عنه reports an incident in the time of our beloved Nabi ﷺ.

He says once some companions were out walking with our beloved Nabi ﷺ when they passed by the marketplace. There, on the side of the road, they found a baby goat which was dead and had only one ear.

Our beloved Nabi ﷺ stopped and reached out to take the goat by its ear and asked the companions:
“Which one of you would like to buy this for one coin?”

The companions quickly replied saying who would buy such a goat? It is worthless. It has only one ear which means it was an abnormal goat and with this it is dead! What would anyone do with such a goat?!

Our beloved Nabi ﷺ asked again three times:
“Would anyone like to have it?”,
“Would anyone like to have it?”,
“Would anyone like to have it?”.

The companions each time replied saying. “No, by Allah, if it was alive we would not buy it as it has only one ear!” They continued to explain, “Being dead, it is even more worthless! How so if it was dead?”.

Our beloved Nabi ﷺ seeing they had truly released the value of this goat turned their attention to a very important matter and said, “By Allah, the worldly life is even less important to Allah Ta’ala than this goat is to you.”

Based on a Hadeeth in Al-Adab al-Mufrad

Moral:

From this story, we understand in reality how worthless this world is. No one will invest in a dead animal as it will bring no benefit to them. Worse still if the animal was defected.

Likewise no matter how wonderful this world and everything in it seems, in reality, it is just like that dead goat. When we reach the hereafter and see Jannah we will truly realise how worthless this world really was.

To read last week’s hadeeth lesson on ‘We are all travellers’ Click here

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