‘Abdullah’s bewilderment knew no bounds...

‘Abdullah’s bewilderment knew no bounds; he assumed that the food had not been poisoned and so ordered the armed Jews to eat it, as a result of which, all of them died. Meanwhile, his daughter who was the bride, decided to sit down on the carpet covering the pit. As soon as she did so, she plummeted into the pit. Her shrieks filled the air, only to subside with her death.

‘Abdullah ordered his servants not to reveal the cause of all the deaths in the house*.* When the news of these incidents reached the Noble Prophet (S), he asked the jealous ‘Abdullah what had happened. “My daughter fell off the roof of the house; as for the others, they died due to diarrhoea,” he replied.[^5] The Strange Act of the Envious Person During the caliphate of Hadi ‘Abbasi[^6], there lived in Baghdad a wealthy person who was righteous and beneficent.

In his vicinity, there resided a person, who was envious of his wealth, and no matter how much he tried to taint the wealthy person’s prestige and bring him into disrepute, he could not succeed. Finally, he decided to purchase a slave, train him and then use him to implement his evil intention.

One day, after a year had passed, he asked his slave: “How obedient are you to your master?” The slave replied, “If you ask me to hurl myself into the fire, I shall do so.” The man was overjoyed to hear this. “My neighbour is rich and wealthy and I bear animosity towards him. I want you to carry out my instructions.

Tonight, both of us shall climb onto the roof of his house where you will kill me so that he is accused of my murder and is put to death by the government as a punishment for killing me,” he said to the slave. However much the slave insisted on not carrying out these instructions, it was to no avail and the man remained unyielding. At midnight, as per the orders of his envious master, the slave severed his master’s head on top the roof of the rich neighbour and hurried back to his bed.

The next day, the death of the jealous person came to light and Hadi ‘Abbasi had the rich person arrested, and subjected him to interrogation. He then summoned the slave and interrogated him too. The slave, observing that the rich person was totally innocent, divulged the incident of jealousy and the subsequent killing. Hearing the incident, the Caliph lowered his head, reflected for a while and then raised it again.