By Mawlana Junayd Makda Sahib
Saving and helping others
There was a very pious saint by the name of Shaykh Hasan al-Basri رحمه الله who lived in Basra (Iraq). He had some amazing qualities from which one quality was to save others from harm and shame.
Let us look at this special quality of his from the following incident.
Once the great Shaykh fell ill. His neighbour came to visit him. The neighbour was a non-Muslim but this was not a problem and they shared a friendly relationship.
As the neighbour entered, he immediately noticed a very foul smell. But remained quiet. After sitting for a while he could no longer take the smell so exclaimed, “O Imam, I am sorry but what is the bad smell I detect?”
The Shaykh tried diverting his attention from the topic but he remained insistent. When the neighbour pressed the shaykh for an answer, he said, “For some months your drain has been leaking and seeping through to my section of the building. I tried to fix it, but unfortunately without any success.”
Hearing this, the neighbour was taken aback and asked why he had not told him about this problem.
The respected Shaykh said, “I fear it may have upset you and put you to shame”.
The neighbour was so impressed by this action of the Shaykh that he decided to accept Islam.
Moral:
It is very easy to put others to shame but it takes great character to hide the faults of others.
A believer does not like to harm others or cause them inconvenience, even if it means going through inconvenience themselves.
To read last week’s lesson on ‘One Believer is a Mirror to another’ Click here