In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
This reminds me of a story of Ali (may Allah be pleased with him). One morning, he entered Masjid al-Koofa to pray two voluntary units of prayer. Before entering, he found a boy standing at the door. He said to him. “O boy, restrain for me my mule until I finish praying.” As Ali was entering the Mosque, he made an intention to reward the boy with a dirham for his services. Meanwhile, the boy removed the noseband from the mule and rushed off to the marketplace to sell it. When Ali came out of the Masjid, he found no boy, but only his mule without its noseband. He commissioned a man to go after the boy and ordered him to go to the marketplace since it was more than likely that the boy would go there to sell the noseband. The man found the boy auctioning it in the market and he bought it from him for a dirham. He returned to Ali and informed him of what happened. After hearing what occurred, Ali said, “How perfect Allah is! By Allah, I intended to give him a lawful dirham, but he refused to take it other than in an unlawful way.”
And, [O Mohammad], you are not [engaged] in any matter or recite any of the Quran and you [people] do not do any deed except that We are witness over you when you are involved in it. And not absent from your Lord is any [part] of an atom’s weight within the earth or within the heaven or [anything] smaller than that or greater but that it is in a clear register. (Quran 10:61)
La Tahzan (Don’t be sad)
By Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni
Translated by: Faisal ibn Muhammad Shafeeq, 2nd ed. Riyadh 2005
Publisher: International Islamic Publishing House
ISBN Hard Cover: 9960-850-36-6
ISBN Soft Cover: 9960-850-44-7
P416