their harm.”

However, if associating with people threatens your religious commitment, then safeguard your faith and withdraw, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Soon the best wealth a man can possess will be sheep that he drives to the mountaintops and places where rain falls,” that is, he flees with his religion from temptation.

Thus Jurayj chose seclusion. He built a hermitage—a place devoted exclusively to the worship of Allah. One day, while he was praying, his mother came and called to him. He thought to himself, “My Lord, my mother or my prayer—shall I respond to my mother and break the prayer, or continue?” He decided to continue praying.

She came a second time and called him with the same request; he weighed the matter as before and remained in his prayer. She returned a third time, again calling him, and once more he chose to continue. Angered, she supplicated, “O Allah, do not let him die until he has looked upon the faces of the prostitutes,” meaning the public fornicators—until he looks upon such women, Allah forbid.

When a man gazes at the faces of prostitutes, he is inevitably tempted, for merely looking at any woman is a trial; how much greater is the temptation when, God forbid, she is an unabashed fornicator who would make herself available? The lure is far stronger, for he sees her as someone ready to yield to him, and thus he is enticed.

From this segment of the hadith we learn that if one’s parents call while one is praying, it is obligatory to answer them—provided the prayer is not an obligatory one, for