The Whip That Fell
🎧 Listen to this chapter (2 min)
Welcome. This is a short book about a quiet kind of strength. The strength not to need people.
Some eleven hundred years ago, Ibn Abi al-Dunya of Baghdad gathered what the Prophet ﷺ and the early Muslims said about contentment, and about keeping one's dignity by not asking others.
He begins with a promise. The Prophet ﷺ once asked his companions, who will guarantee me one thing, and I will guarantee him Paradise? Thawban said, I will. Do not ask people for anything, said the Prophet ﷺ.
And Thawban never did. If his whip fell from his hand while he was riding, he would not ask anyone to pass it to him. He would get down from his mount, and pick it up himself.
Another group of companions made a pledge with the Prophet ﷺ. To worship Allah alone, to pray the five prayers, and then he added, quietly, and not to ask people for anything. One of them later said, I saw some of those men drop their whips, and not ask anyone to hand it back.
It sounds like a small thing. But it is a whole way of living. A heart that turns to Allah first, and to people last.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
