Dialogue Between the Pious and the Wretched

[fisabililah]

Rab`ee bin `Aamir entered upon Rustom, the leader of Persia, who had 280,000 soldiers under him. Rustum addressed him with arrogance of one who has power, "What brought you here?. . Rab`ee was wearing a thorn robe and had with him a spear and an old horse.

Rustom told him laughingly, while his ministers and companions were sitting with him: "You came to conquer the world with this spear, an old horse and a thorn robe?" So Rab`ee ibn `Aamir responded to him, confident in Allah's help: "Allah sent us to take servants from servitude to (other) servants to servitude of the Lord of servants, and from the narrowness of this world to the vastness of the hereafter, and from the tyranny of religions to the justice of Islam." So the wretched one responded to him after the reply of Rab`ee bin `Aamir baffled him: "Do not exit my palace or hall until you carry soil on your head", so Rab`ee bin `Aamir carried soil and said to his companions, "This is a glad tiding that Allah will let us own their land."

Later, Sa`d bin Abi Waqqaas entered this land victoriously and entered the hall of misguidance and smashed the den of the Persian idolatry, and said, what was related in the Qur'an, "How much they left behind of gardens and springs and crops and noble sites and comfort wherein they were amused. Thus. And we caused it to be inherited by another people." [Ad-Dukhaan, 44:25-28]

"These are two adversaries who have disputed over their Lord." [Hajj, 22:19] Such end befell those who did not know Allah, who did not obey his orders, nor shunned what He forbade.