- Al-Ḥusayn narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; he said: Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Kathīr al-ʿAbdī told me; he said: Khalaf ibn al-Walīd narrated, from ⦗63⦘ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zayd ibn Abī al-Ḥawārī, from his father, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, who said:
Luqman said to his son, “Let no event befall you—whether you like it or detest it—without your holding in the depths of your heart the certainty that it is good for you.”
The boy replied, “I cannot take this from you unless I first know for sure that what you say is truly as you claim.”
Luqman answered, “My son, Allah has sent a prophet. Come, let us go to him, for the explanation of what I have just told you is with him.”
“Lead us to him,” the son said. So they set out: Luqman on a donkey, his son on another, and they took provisions sufficient for their needs. They travelled for days and nights until they reached a trackless desert. Having made their preparations, they entered it and went on as far as Allah willed, until the sun rose high, the heat grew fierce, their water and food ran out, and their donkeys began to lag. They dismounted and hurried the animals on foot.
While they were in that state, Luqman looked ahead and saw a dark mass and a column of smoke. He thought to himself, “The dark mass must be trees, and the smoke habitation and people.” They kept walking, when suddenly Luqman’s son trod on a protruding bone in the path; it pierced the sole of his foot and came out the top. The boy collapsed unconscious. Luqman glanced back, saw his son fallen, rushed over, clasped him to his chest, pulled the bone out with his teeth ⦗64⦘, tore a strip from the turban he wore and bound the boy’s foot. Then he looked at his son’s face; tears welled up, and one drop fell on the lad’s cheek, whereupon he revived.
He looked at his father, who was weeping, and said, “Father, you are crying and yet you say, ‘This is good for me’? How can this be good for me when you are in tears, when the food and water are gone, and the two of us are stranded here? If you leave me as I am, you will go off burdened with sorrow for as long as you live, and if you stay with me we shall both die. How, then, can this possibly be good for me while you are crying?”
He replied, “As for my tears, my son, I only wish I could ransom you with all the share I have of this world; but I am a father, and in a father there is tenderness. As for your question—how this can be good for you—perhaps what has been averted from you is greater than what has afflicted you, and perhaps what has afflicted you is lighter than what was turned away.”
While he was speaking thus, Luqman looked ahead again and the smoke and darkness were gone. He thought, “I saw nothing.” Then he said, “No—I did see, but perhaps my Lord has wrought something concerning what I saw.”
As he pondered this, he looked up and saw a figure approaching on a piebald horse, clothed in white garments and a white turban, gliding through the air. He watched him until the rider drew near, then the figure vanished from sight. A voice called, “Are you Luqman?” “Yes,” he answered.
“Are you the wise man?” “So they say, and so my Lord has named me.”
“What did this foolish son of yours say to you?” Luqman replied, “Servant of Allah, who are you? I hear your words but do not see your face.”
He said, “I am Gabriel; none sees me but an angel of the inner circle or a commissioned prophet—were it not so, you would see me. Now, what did this foolish son of yours say to you?”
Luqman said to himself, ⦗65⦘ “If you are Gabriel, you know better than I what my son has said.”
Gabriel, peace be upon him, said, “I have no say in your affair beyond safeguarding you both. Come: my Lord has ordered me to sink this city and all that surrounds it and everyone within. I was informed that you two were heading for that city, so I asked my Lord to hold you back by whatever means He willed, and Allah held you back through the trial that befell your son. Had your son not been afflicted, I would have sunk you along with those I am to sink.”
Then Gabriel passed his hand over the boy’s foot and he stood up whole; he passed his hand over the container that had held the food and it filled with food, and over the one that had held the water and it filled with water. He then lifted them both and their donkeys, propelling them as a bird is propelled, and after days and nights they found themselves in the very house from which they had set out.