Islamic Stories,Rays of Guidance ✓

Hajj

🍀بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم🍀
ﷺ ♥̸̨͡🍃ﷺ♥̸̨͡🍃ﷺ
STORY:
A FASCINATING ACCOUNT OF LOVE
(from the discourses of Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmed (db)

Hadrat Mufti Jamil Ahmed (rahmatullah alayh) of Jamia Ashrafia Lahore used to relate a story about a cowhand outside of Lahore whose only work was raising & milking cows. He developed an intense desire to see Bait Ullah (the Holy Kaaba) but he was very poor & had no means.

After continuously asking people how he could go to Hajj someone finally told him that he could not go from Lahore but that pilgrims leave on ships from Karachi. Hence this cowhand boarded a train & reached Karachi. He asked the same questions of people at the station & was told that pilgrims left after gathering at the Haji Camp at the seaport.

The Haji Camp was far but fortunately some people who were going by that way offered him a ride & left him at the camp. Now this cowhand observed pilgrims boarding & leaving on ships for many days & wondered what he could do since he neither had proper documentation nor any money for the journey.

He observed porters boarding & leaving the ships after helping the pilgrims with their luggage & was determined to somehow board one of the ships. One of the porters told him that he could only board the ship if he was wearing a porter uniform, & so he talked the porter into lending him a jacket which he would send back with some of the luggage being brought off the ship. This porter agreed & so this cowhand managed to smuggle himself onboard one of the ships bound for Jeddah.

The ship got underway & he asked a pilgrim named Abdullah to let him know when Jeddah was near. The ship neared Jeddah at nightfall & so Abdullah let the cowhand know that Jeddah’s lights were visible & the captain had announced they would be docking soon. This cowhand mounted the ship’s railing & dived off the edge into the sea. Abdullah was shocked & ran to the edge to see if he would come up but it was dark & so Abdullah feared that the cowhand must surely have drowned.
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As Abdullah performed Hajj & was leaving after the Tawaf-e-Ziyarah he noticed the same cowhand he had met on the ship dressed in fine white robes. They met enthusiastically & Abdullah asked what had happened to him. His friend ( the cowhand) invited him to his house so they could talk at leisure.

Once outside the Haram, Abdullah & the cowhand get into a brand new limousine with a driver in front. He was perplexed & asked what was going on. The cowhand said that the car & driver were his & he would explain everything at home.

Abdullah was even more at a loss when the limousine pulled up in front of a beautiful mansion & so asked his friend to tell him everything that had happened. Thus the cowhand started explaining.

He explained to Abdullah that he neither had paperwork nor money but a desperate desire to perform Hajj so he had jumped overboard. He did not know how to swim but half-drowned he reached the shores of Jeddah.

He laid half-conscious until dawn when he searched of a way out of the port & noticed a house. There he saw that two men were trying to milk a cow but the cow was not cooperating because the men obviously did not know the technique required.

After observing their unsuccessful efforts for some time, he motioned to these men that he could milk the cow if they would let him. The men agreed & so the cowhand sat next to the cow. Being a specialist at handling cows he was able to milk enough to fill not only one but two pails for the men.

By the grace of اللَّهُ Subhana wa Ta'ala the owner of this house was the superintendent in charge of the port, & his wife wanted milk for her children. They had been very unsuccessful at handling their cow & so their children would remain hungry. The wife was so glad at having so much milk for the children that her husband said they would hire the cowhand permanently to milk their cow.

The cowhand explained his situation & the superintendent forgave him for not having his paperwork & would arrange everything if only he would stay & milk the cow. This cowhand was a simple man & insisted that he only wanted to perform Hajj. The superintendent said he would arrange this too.

It so happened that the superintendent’s father-in-law had a dairy farm on which he kept up to 200 hundred cows, & he too was having difficulty finding a specialist at milking his cows. The wife was so impressed that she called her father & boasted about their new cowhand & how beneficial he could be for the diary farm.

They sent their new employee to the dairy farm where he very easily & efficiently milked many cows. The owner was very impressed & saw the solution to his problems. He offered the cowhand a job at the dairy farm but all the cowhand said he wanted to do was perform Hajj after which he had to return to his family.

The dairy farm owner was very rich & was not about to see his new discovery get away. Hence he said that he would not only provide the cowhand a house & car by which he could go to Hajj & also Umra every day if he wanted to, but he would also arrange the necessary paperwork to have the cowhand’s family brought over to live on the farm.

The cowhand concluded his story saying that everything was now his,whereas all he had set out to accomplish was to see the House of Allah.

Hadrat Mufti Jamil Ahmed said upon relating this story that such a story proves that everyone can perform Hajj if a poor cowhand with no means can do it. Hajj is a tremendous journey that demands money, but this story proves that love & desire are much more a factor in that journey’s completion.

The only shortcoming preventing us from this fabulous journey is the desire that is evident from this story. We as Muslims need to not only develop this love & desire within us but supplicate tirelessly to Allah to grant us this so that we may get the ability to see His House again & again.
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