Haroon asked him for the reason of doing so and Bahlool replied...

Haroon asked him for the reason of doing so and Bahlool replied: "Much as thought over your suggestion, I find, there is no other more deserving poor and needy than you the Caliph yourself. Therefore I have returned the money to you as I have found your officers and collectors standing in shops and by lashing their whips extract your taxes by force from people.

Thus your treasury goes on swelling and I conclude that your requirement of money must be much more than the poor man of your domain." What a splendid lesson to those who take pride in making open charities from the money they obtain by exploiting the poor. Bahlool was driving home to Haroon that it was not worth assisting the charity which was from the money he had illicitly and unjustly obtained.

GOD'S BEST BLESSING Haroon once asked Bahlool: "What is the best blessing from Allah?" Bahlool replied: "The supreme blessing from Allah can be nothing else but Aql - intellect and power of reasoning. And Khwaja Abdullah Ansari in his supplication had mentioned: "Oh Allah! To those blessed with intellect what is it that you have not given?

And to those not blessed with intellect, what have you given!" It is recorded that when Allah wishes to punish someone by taking away from him His blessings, the first thing He takes away is his Aql - intellect. And human intellect is considered also as one of the valuable sustenance from Allah.

"The first thing created by Allah is intellect" The human intellect - reasoning - has been defined in the following hadith: "Intellect Is that by which Allah the Compassionate is obeyed and by which one qualifies to enter heaven." The Prophet of Islam has also said "Indeed all that is good to attainable by (the help and use of) intellect and he who has no intellect has no religion." ON BIRTH OF A BABY GIRL Ishaq bin Mohamed bin Sabah was one of the prominent leaders in Kufa.

His wife once gave birth to baby girl. For this reason, he had become exceedingly sad and refrained from normal intake of food and drink. When Bahtool came to learn about this, he went to him and said: "Oh leader!