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What the Wicked and Slavery Mind-Set People Do?
(A lesson from the history)

Hazrat Imam Shafi (Rahmatullah Alaih) has been a great Muslim scholar, pious and reformer. He is one of the four great Imams of the four Muslim schools of thought- Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (Rahmatullah Alaih), Hazrat Imam Malik (Rahmatullah Alaih) and Hazrat Imam Ahmad Bin Humble (Rahmatullah Alaih). May Almighty Allah bless all of them.

One night Imam Shafi (Rahmatullah Alaih) was busy in teaching his students in a Masjid, and an important discussion was going on a religious theme. There were other people who were sleeping in the Masjid. Most of them were travelers, poor and disable people who used to take shelter in the Masjid. Suddenly, a strange man entered the Masjid with a lamp in his hand. The new arrival began to search for something, and looked in to every person by putting the light on their faces who were sleeping.

Imam Shafi stared at the stranger thoughtfully for a while, and asked the stranger to come closer to him. The Imam asked the stranger if he had been looking for his slave who had run away, and added, “Were your slave was a Habshi and had a wound in his left eye?” The stranger said, “Yes! He was a Habshi, who had run away, and his left eye had been destroyed”. The Imam asked the stranger to go out and search for his slave in the prison; he would find him in the prison.

The stranger went away by thanking the Imam. Hazrat Imam Shafi became engaged in teaching again. After some time, the stranger came back and told the Imam that he (the Imam) was right, he found his slave in the prison. The students of Imam Shafi were surprised over the insight of the Imam, and they asked him how he knew all these, as he (the Imam) had just come in that city. The Imam said that when the stranger came to the Masjid he understood that he was searching for someone, as he looked in to the people who were sleeping, furthermore, he was giving more attention to the side where all Habshis were sleeping and he was putting the light on the left eyes of the sleepers; the Imam continued that he understood the man was searching for his Habshi slave who had problem with his left eye, and had run away.

The students again asked the Imam that how he came to know that the man would find his slave in the prison. Here the response of Imam Shafi would be written in the history of world with golden words. The Imam said, “a person who is slave or has a mind-set of slavery will commit stealing and looting others when he is hungry, and will do more evil act when he has wealth and money, so will be persecuted ”

Now, being a Muslim we all must judge our own actions that what we do when we are underprivileged, and what we do to have wealth and money. All the wrong doers, corrupt and perverted people have the psychology of slavery.

Hakim Shah
Karachi.