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Medina, in the second century of the Hijrah, holds a quiet
story about the true meaning of wealth.
In that city lived a Muslim soldier named Faruq. One
morning, before the sun had climbed high and while the desert wind was still
cool, he prepared to leave his home. The call to jihad was taking him far away,
to the lands of Khurasan. At the threshold stood his wife, her belly heavy with
child—late in pregnancy, carrying both fear and prayer in her heart.
Before departing, Faruq placed a leather pouch into his
wife’s hands. It was heavy: thirty thousand gold dinars, a fortune that, by
today’s measure, would be worth billions.
“Use this for your life and for our child,” he said softly.
“Until I return.”
Faruq left, convinced his absence would be brief. But
destiny had written another path. The journey would last not months, but
twenty-seven years.
A few days after his departure, a baby boy was born. In the
stillness of the night, the mother cradled him in her arms. By the dim glow of
an oil lamp, she gazed at his tiny face and whispered within her heart:
This wealth will not be spent on luxury. I will spend it
on knowledge, so that you may grow in the light of learning and faith.
And so the years passed. One by one, the dinars left the
pouch—not for jewelry or grand houses, but for the finest teachers in Medina,
for books of knowledge, and for a future unseen. The child learned without the
burden of worldly concern, for his mother had carried that burden for him.
Time moved slowly, yet relentlessly. From a small boy named
Rabiah, he grew into a young man, and then into a great scholar. His voice
became known in the Prophet’s Mosque; his knowledge was respected, his
character emulated. Students of knowledge gathered around him every day—among
them Imam Malik ibn Anas.
Then, one afternoon, twenty-seven years later, Faruq
returned to Medina.
His steps faltered as he entered the house he had left
behind long ago. The walls were the same, but the air felt different. Inside
stood a grown man, his gaze firm and commanding.
“Who are you?” Faruq demanded.
“And who dares enter my house?” the young man replied,
equally wary. “I am the one who should ask—who are you, coming in here
unannounced?”
Tension hung thick in the air, until an elderly woman
emerged from behind the door. Time and long patience were etched upon her face.
She looked at them both, then spoke with a trembling voice:
“He is my husband… and he is your son.”
The words fell like a breaking dam. Father and son stared at
one another, then embraced tightly. No words could contain a longing stretched
over twenty-seven years.
When the tears had subsided, Faruq remembered something he
had carried in his heart all that time.
“Where are the thirty thousand dinars I left behind?” he
asked quietly.
His wife smiled—a smile filled with serenity.
“I kept them in a safe place,” she said. “If you wish to see
them, go now to the Prophet’s Mosque.”
Faruq went to the mosque. There he saw a scholar surrounded
by students, imparting knowledge with wisdom and gentleness. His heart
trembled. In that moment, he understood: this was his wealth.
Not gold.
Not dinars.
But knowledge—whose value increases the more it is shared.
For gold is exhausted when it is spent,
but knowledge lives on as long as it is taught.
And Allah knows best what is right.
#OneHealthFaith
#IslamicHistory
#KnowledgeOverWealth
#FaithBasedStory
#LegacyOfKnowledge
