28/12/2025
A SIN THAT 40 YEARS OF WORSHIP COULD NOT ERASE
It is narrated from Mālik ibn Dīnār (may ALLĀH have mercy on him) that he said:
While I was circumambulating the Sacred House (Ka'bah), I was impressed by the great number of pilgrims and those performing umrah. I said, 'If only I knew who among them has been accepted so I could congratulate him, and who among them has been rejected so I could console him.'
When night came, I saw in my sleep someone saying: 'Mālik ibn Dīnār asks about the pilgrims and those performing umrah? ALLĀH has forgiven them all - young and old, male and female, black and red - except for one man, with whom ALLĀH, the Exalted is angry. ALLĀH has rejected his pilgrimage and flung it back in his face.'
Mālik said: I spent a night such as only ALLĀH knows, fearing that I might be that man. When the second night came, I saw the same in my sleep, except that it was said to me: 'You are not that man. Rather, he is from Khurāsān, from the city of Balkh. He is called Muhammad ibn Hārūn al-Balkhī.'
When morning came, I went to the tribes of Khurāsān and said: 'Your brother Muhammad ibn Hārūn?' They said: 'Excellent, excellent! You ask about a man who has no equal in Khurāsān in worship, asceticism, or recitation.'
I was astonished by the beautiful praise people gave him and by what I had seen in my dream. I said: 'Guide me to him.' They said: 'For forty years he has fasted by day and prayed by night, and he shelters nowhere except ruins. We think he is in the ruins of Makkah.'
So I began to roam among the ruins, until I found him standing behind a wall. His right hand was hung from his neck, fastened with two great shackles to his feet. He was bowing and prostrating. When he sensed the sound of my footsteps, he said: 'Who are you?' I said: 'Mālik ibn Dīnār.' He said: 'O Mālik, what has brought you to me? If you have seen a dream, then relate it to me.' I said: 'I am ashamed to say it.' He said: 'Rather, say it.'
So I related it to him. He wept for a long time and said: 'I was a man who drank intoxicants excessively. One day I drank with a companion of mine until I became drunk and lost my senses. I came to my house and entered, and there was my mother lighting a tannūr (oven) for us. When she saw me staggering from my drunkenness, she came toward me, feeding me and saying: "This is the last day of Sha'bān and the first night of Ramaḍān. People will wake up fasting, and you will wake up drunk! Do you not feel ashamed before ALLĀH?" I raised my hand and struck her. She said: "May you perish." I became angry at her words, and in my drunkenness I carried her and threw her into the oven. When my wife saw me, she took me into a room and locked me inside.
When the last part of the night came, my drunkenness left me. I called my wife to open the door, and she answered me harshly. I said: "Woe to you, what is this harshness?" She said: "You deserve no mercy." I said: "Why?" She said: "You killed your mother. You threw her into the oven and she burned."
I went out to the oven and found her like a burnt loaf of bread. I went out, gave away my wealth in charity, and freed my slaves. For forty years now I have fasted by day and prayed by night, and I perform ḥajj every year. Each year, a worshipper like you sees this dream (that my worship has been rejected) concerning me.'..
📚 Mentioned in: 'Birr al- Walidayn' by Ibn al-Jawzī || pp. 7-8
