advancing is better for him or holding back brings greater good, he performs istikharah. When a person seeks guidance from Allah with sincerity and faith, Allah Most High grants him something by which he can recognize where the benefit truly lies—whether in proceeding or in refraining. That sign may be a feeling Allah casts into his heart so that his chest is opened toward one option or the other, or a dream he sees while asleep, or the counsel of someone, or something else altogether.

Among the extraordinary favors Allah granted this boy was that he healed the congenitally blind and the leper: he would pray for them and they would be cured—an honor from Allah to him. It was not like the case of Jesus son of Mary, who merely touched those afflicted and they recovered; rather, this boy would supplicate Allah and Allah would answer him, so that by his prayer the blind and the leper were healed.

The monk had told the boy that he would one day be put to trial—that a test awaited him—and asked him not to reveal his identity if anything happened. It seems, and Allah knows best, that the boy’s prayers were accepted without fail; whenever he called upon Allah, Allah responded.

Now the king had a court companion who was blind. When this man heard about the boy, he brought many gifts and said, “All of this—every last item—will be yours if you heal me.” The boy replied, “It is Allah alone who heals.”

Behold that faith! He did not become conceited or claim that he himself cured the sick; he said, “It is Allah who heals you.” In some respects this resembles what occurred with Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—when a man possessed by a jinn was brought to him. The Shaykh recited over the man, yet the jinn did not leave, so Ibn Taymiyyah began striking the man’s neck with firm blows, until the Shaykh’s own hand