Abd Allah-e Mobarak and his slave
By Abu Zain Naqeebul Ashraaf Peer Syed Mohyuddin Mahboob Hanafi Qadri
Sajjada Nasheen Khanka Mahboobabad Shareef Havelian Abbottabad Pakistán
Abd Allah had a slave. A man told him, “That slave of yours plunders the dead and gives you the proceeds.”
This information distressed Abd Allah. One night he followed on his slave’s heels. He went to a cemetery
and opened a grave. In the grave was a prayer-niche, where the slave stood at prayer. Abd Allah, who had
watched all this from a distance, crept nearer. He saw that the slave was clothed in sackcloth and had put a
collar round his neck. Rubbing his face in the earth, he was wailing. Observing this, Abd Allah crept away
weeping and sat apart in a corner.
The slave remained in that place until dawn. Then he came up and covered over the grav
e, and proceeded to the mosque and said his morning prayers.
“My God,” he cried, “day has returned. My temporal lord will ask me for money. Thou art the riches of
the bankrupt. Give Thou to me from whence Thou knowest.”
Immediately a light shone out of the sky, and a silver dirham dropped into the slave’s hand. Abd Allah could
not bear to watch any more. He rose up and took the head of the slave into his bosom and kissed him.
“A thousand lives be the ransom of such a slave!” he exclaimed. “You were the master, not I.”
“O God,” cried the slave, perceiving what had happened, “now that my veil has been stripped away and
my secret is revealed, no more repose remains for me in this world. I implore Thee by Thy might and glory, suffer
me not to be a cause of stumbling. Take away my soul.”
His head was still lying in Abd Allah’s bosom when he expired. Abd Allah laid him out and wrapped him
in a winding-sheet, then he buried him in that same sackcloth in the selfsame grave.
That night Abd Allah saw the Master of the World in a dream, and the Friend of God Abraham with him,
each come down riding a heavenly horse. “Abd Allah,” they said, “why did you bury our
friend in sackcloth?”
