in the mosque.
• Beside the desert lizard there is quenching though no water is present, while countless are the parched who drift in the very midst of the flood.
• Divine knowledge had already decreed Moses’s prophethood and Asiya’s faith, so his little ark was steered to her house—a child torn from his mother brought to a woman bereft of a child! By Allah, how many lessons lie in this story! How many infants did Pharaoh slaughter in search of Moses, while the tongue of destiny kept declaring, “We shall raise him only in your very lap!”
• Dhu’l-Bijadayn (1) was orphaned young, and his uncle took him in. His soul yearned to follow the Messenger, so he made ready to depart, but the remnants of illness held him back; he remained, waiting for his uncle. Once his health was fully restored, his patience ran out and the voice of longing called to him:
How long will she stay confined, complaining of the narrowness?
Release her—perhaps she will at last find a way. (2)
He said, “Uncle! My wait for your acceptance of Islam has grown long, and I see no eagerness in you!” The uncle replied, “By Allah, if you become Muslim I will take back everything I have given you.” Whereupon the tongue of yearning cried, “A single glance from Muhammad is dearer to me than the whole world and all it contains.”
If Majnun were asked, “Do you want Layla and union with her,
or the entire world and all it conceals?”
He would say, “Dust from the dust of her sandals
is sweeter to my soul and a surer cure for my plight.” (3)
When he stripped himself for the journey to the Messenger, his uncle stripped him of his clothes, and his mother handed him