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The generous king, do not forget, is very merciful. Out of his mercifulness towards his subjects, he vacated his seat of power just to protect his people. Can our leaders, politicians, and our moneybags learn any lesson from this story?
O Allah, show us mercy. Nigeria is bleeding. Our country is crying. Lives and property are becoming worthless as days pass by. Students are kidnapped more painfully, female students. Schools are closed. For those that are opened, students could not pay school fees because parents sources of incomes are no more. For those whose sources of income are intact, inflation has rendered their earnings useless. Where do we go from here? The government is in confusion.
The governed in desolation. The country seems to be on fire as the sky rains fuel. Our problems are so gargantuan that only God can solve it. The government is said to be rudderless, yet we have a long way to go. What a pity!
Our roads are not safe. Not because they are infested with lions, tigers, and other dangerous animals; but because they are ungoverned spaces. They are now under the control of a new group of bandits. Bandits who are not criminals. What they do is killing, burning and kidnapping; not of goats, chickens, flies or termites, but of humans with flesh and souls and blood. If it bothers you to know why they are not criminals, you had better ask Sheikh Gumi before it is too late. You need to meet him personally for more clarification.
This is the Gumian perspective on banditry in the new Nigerian Political Thought. In that perspective, Christian soldiers kill bandits. I am still not clear about what the Muslim soldiers do. We are in trouble really. Only God of mercy can save us. If you think we are not in the Hobbesian state of nature, you should know that we are on the trajectory that leads to it. If you think we are still not on that trajectory that leads to it, you need to wake up from your slumber. If you refused to, you are OYO!
If we choose to be generous like the king who chose to be, we would not find ourselves in this mess. What gladdens our moneybags is to climb the next rungs on the ladder of the world richest men. They always want to be spotted on the Forbes List. Touching the lives of the downtrodden in a positive way is not their priority. This explains why a so called man of god’ chooses to intensify prayer for the continuation of COVID 19 and lockdown so that he can add more to his three private jets which he acquiredcourtesy of COVID.
A generous man is never a wicked man. He will neither kill nor will he like to see people in pain. He will neither be a criminal bandit nor a pious oneI am yet to come to terms with this taxonomy. A generous man shows mercy at every opportunity because he knows it is rewarding. The Prophet is clear about this in his typical manner of exhortation. He said: Allah is merciful to those who show mercy to others. (Bukhari) Be merciful to those on earth, so the One above the heavens will be merciful to you. (Tabarani) He who does not show mercy to others, will not be shown mercy (Bukhari) Mercy is always removed from the miserable (Abu Dawud). From the last hadith, we learn if a Muslim is not generous and merciful, he is miserable. Are you miserable? Or are we miserable?
Now lets turn to our storythe story of the king who chose to be generous. When he had heard this story, the king of Iran, forgetting his threat against the dervish, said: An excellent tale, O dervish, and one from which we can benefit. You, at any rate, cannot benefit, having abandoned already your expectations of this life and being possessed of nothing. But I, I am a king. And I am rich. Arab kings, people who live on boiled lizards, cannot match a Persian when it comes to real generosity. An idea strikes me! Let us to work!
Taking the dervish with him, the king of Iran summoned his greatest architects to a large open space and ordered them to design and build an immense palace. It was to be composed of a central strong room and forty windows. When it was completed the king caused every available means of transport to be assembled and the palace to be filled with pieces of gold. After months of this activity, a proclamation went forth:
Lo, the King of Kings, Fountain of Generosity, has ordained that a palace with forty windows be constructed. He will personally, every day, dispense gold to all needy people, from these windows.
Not unnaturally, large crowds of necessitous ones collected and the king handed out one gold piece to every applicant, appearing at one window each day. Then he noticed that there was a certain dervish who presented himself every day at the window, took his piece of gold, and went away. At first the king thought: Perhaps he wants to carry the gold to someone who is in need. Then, when he saw the man again, he thought: Perhaps he is applying the dervish rule of secret charity, and redistributes the gold.
And every day when he saw the dervish, he excused him in his own mind, until the fortieth day when the king found that his patience could not endure further. Seizing the hand of the dervish, he said: Ungrateful wretch! You neither say Thank you nor do you show any esteem for me. You do not smile, you do not bow, and you come back day after day. How long can this process continue? Are you saving up from my bounty to become rich, or are you lending out the gold on interest? Far indeed are you from the behavior of those with the honorable badge of the patched robe.
Hmmm! As soon as these words had been said, the dervish threw down the forty pieces of gold which he had received. He said to the king: Know, O King of Iran that generosity cannot exist without three things preceding it. The first is giving without the sentiment of generosity; the second is patience; the third is having no suspicions.
But the king never learned. To him, generosity was bound up with what people would think of him, and how he felt about being generous.
This traditional story, which is known to readers as ‘The Tale of the Four Dervishes’, succinctly illustrates important teachings. Emulation without the basic qualities to sustain that emulation is useless. The Persian tried to emulate the generosity of Hatim but he lacked the quality to sustain that generosity which is intended for the sake of Allah.
Are you a rich man or woman; and want to be generous for the sake of Allah? Apply these Quranic verses: They [are those who] fulfill [their] vows and fear a Day whose evil will be widespread. And they give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive. [Saying], We feed you only for the countenance [i.e., approval] of Allah. We wish not from you reward or gratitude. Indeed, We fear from our Lord a Day austere and distressful. So Allah will protect them from the evil of that Day and give them radiance and happiness. And will reward them for what they patiently endured [with] a garden [in Paradise] and silk [garments] (Q76: 7-12). May Allah protect us from the evil of the Last Day, give us happiness, and reward us with Paradise.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen writes from Gashua
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
