A House By The Canal In Arabia

[ummtaalib]

A House By The Canal In Arabia

 

As salaamu alaii kumm wa rahmatullahi wa barakath,

This incident occured in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

 

In the holy month of Ramadan, a pious woman gathered her children every day before iftaar (the time for breaking the fast after sunset) and asked them to pray with her. Then she raised her hands and said: “O Allah! Provide us with our own house by the side of a flowing canal.” The children then all raised their hands and repeated the prayer.

 

The woman’s husband laughed at them and said: “Your wish for a house is understandable, but what do you mean by a canal flowing beside the house? How will this canal come to our desert area?”. 

 

The wife replied: “Don’t worry about it; this is a matter between us and Allah Almighty. He (Allah) says: “Call upon Me and I will respond to your call. So we will seek from Him whatever comes to our mind again and again.”

In short, she gathered the children daily and prayed to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.

 

The holy month of Ramadan was over her and husband asked her sarcastically: “Now tell me where is your house and the canal?” The lady replied with firm faith: “Allah Almighty will certainly give us a house, He will fulfill all our desires.”

 

What happened next was related by the woman herself:

 

“I had barely finished fasting the six days of Shawwal when one day a strange incident happened. My husband was coming out of the mosque after ‘Asr prayer. A well-known and affluent person of Riyadh stopped him. My husband did not recognise him. The person said salaam to my husband and said: “I have a house with my father living in half of it. The other half is vacant. Allah Almighty has blessed me and my children with a lot of property and we don’t need the vacant portion. Today I left my place with the intention of offering the remaining portion of the house to the first person who comes out of the mosque after ‘Asr prayer. I’ve come across you here. Now my request is that you accept half of our house as a gift.”

 

We were reluctant to accept the offer without paying anything. However, the man said, “If you insist on paying for the house, you may give me whatever amount you can arrange easily.” We collected money from different sources, which amounted to around 8,000 riyals. We handed over that amount to the gentleman. “Now we were the owners of half a house in a posh locality of Riyadh. It is true that whoever calls upon Allah ta’ala with sincerity in his or her heart, Allah Almighty does answer their call”.

 

“However, one thing perturbed me. I had asked Allah for a canal to flow alongside the house, but there was no canal. I asked a religious scholar whether Allah Almighty blesses a person with what he or she seeks from Him? I sought a house on the bank of a canal from Allah Almighty but I got the house without any canal.”

The religious scholar was astonished at my firm belief. He asked me what lay in front of my new house. I replied that there was a beautiful mosque there. The religious scholar smiled and said,

 

“That is the canal!”

 

There is a Hadith that once the Prophet of Allah (immense peace and infinite blessings be upon him) said to the Companions (may Allah ta’ala be pleased with them): “If a person lives in a house by the side of a flowing canal and he takes a bath in it five times a day, will any dirt or impurity remain on his body?” The Companions replied: “No, O Prophet of Allah! No dirt or impurity will remain on his body”. The Prophet (immense peace and infinite blessings be upon him) said: “This is the case with praying five times a day by means of which Allah Almighty removes sins.”

 

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