Two Hungry Wolves
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Welcome. Picture a dark night. A flock of sheep, with no shepherd. And two hungry wolves, let loose among them.
By morning, how many sheep would be left?
The Prophet ﷺ used this very picture. He said, in a hadith recorded by Ahmad, al-Tirmidhi and others, from Ka'b ibn Malik, two hungry wolves sent among sheep do not do more damage to them than a man's greed for wealth and status does to his religion.
Seven centuries later, in Damascus, the scholar Ibn Rajab wrote a short book explaining this one sentence. And it became one of the most honest books ever written about money, ambition, and the human heart.
Ibn Rajab says, think about the picture. When two hungry wolves get into a flock at night, with no shepherd, only a few sheep survive. And the Prophet ﷺ is telling us that greed for money and status does at least as much damage to a person's faith. Perhaps even more. Only a little of his religion will be left.
It is related that the Prophet ﷺ said this when a companion bought a hundred shares of the land of Khaybar. Not a sin. Just a man who had started to want more.
In this book, Ibn Rajab takes each wolf in turn. First, the wolf of wealth. Then, the far more dangerous wolf, the love of status. And at the end, he shows us the only kind of greatness worth wanting.
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