The Woman and the Stone

[Nur]

The Women and The Stone

 

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious

stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was

hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The

hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give

it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left,

rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough

to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came

back to return the stone to the wise woman.

 

"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but

I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more

precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give

me the stone."

 

 

Thinking about the story one can deduce

 

1. That there are other metrics to measure price

2. Wisdom is the best Khair Allah can bestow

3. Wisdom means puting things in order

4. Mankind has a perpose on earth during her finite lifetime

5. The purpose is highre than most people realize

6. Few know the purpose

7. These are the gems of mankind

 

[LadyFatima]

WOW great story thanks for sharing brotha..

[S.O.S]

Nice one brother Nur.

 

This is very interesting story for many reasons but one have to dig deep to realise the paradox of human nature. If the precious stone is a metaphor for desires of worldly glitter, material gain and to serve misguided illusions about the keys to happiness in life; then to return that precious stone is the ultimate symbolical act of divorce from all allusions. These illusions make us believe that there’s more to life than it’s actually meant to, as decreed by Allah. We are all willing to forsake exercising the true purpose of life in exchange for short lived pleasures or something seemingly precious and valuable, while all the true precious and valuable things in this life and hereafter are with Allah.

 

In this case, this man was extremely lucky that he could realise (physically and mentally) an illusion before choosing to denounce it, but most of us will die chasing after these illusions and never realising them, let along being in a position to denounce anything.

 

However, there’s always one illusion that we’re living in and we still have a chance, just like that man, to turn our backs on in exchange for kheys and nearness to Allah. Can we recognise the illusion we’re living in? Is the routine of our lives too deeply centred around a big lie/illusion that we’re unable to fully see the mess (and what a mess) we’re in?

 

If you don’t know where to start from, just ask yourselves every time you look into the mirror:

 

WHY AM I LOOKING MYSELF IN THE MIRROR?

[Nur]

Shams bro

 

Thew story is indeed deep in meaning, it touches on the priceless inner values some of hold dear, that they will never exchange with any material possession.

 

Prophet Muhammad SWAS was offered to be the King of Qureish, the company of their most beautiful women, wealth etc if he can only stop his message of Islam that was threatening the social order of Arabia at the time,. his response, " if you put the sun on my right pal, and the moon on my left palm, i would never stop my mission"

 

 

In the course of my school and work, I have met people of substance, both Muslims and non Muslims, those who earned my highsest respect have always been the principle centered people, because with these people, I was successful, they were like the perfume carrier, both in terms of faith and business, the latter, who are material centered , they were like the furnance, they burn you, both money and soul.

 

 

Nur

[S.O.S]

Dear brother Nur,

 

Thew story is indeed deep in meaning, it touches on the priceless inner values some of hold dear, that they will never exchange with any material possession.

This issue is central to the question of faith itself, as a conflicting inner/outer struggle between the balances of worldly choices in exchange of non-worldly ultimate purpose. When a situation is given where material life is competing with spiritual life, the value of life itself is at stake, and if a person chooses material over faith, then that person’s life is worth whatever the value of his material gain is equal to in this world. If on the other hand a person decides to hold on to his faith whiles in the process forsaking worldly material benefits, then that person’s life has the value as set by Allah in this world, but more so in the hereafter.

 

In the course of my school and work, I have met people of substance, both Muslims and non Muslims, those who earned my highsest respect have always been the principle centered people, because with these people, I was successful, they were like the perfume carrier, both in terms of faith and business, the latter, who are material centered , they were like the furnance, they burn you, both money and soul.

Again a very true observation and I used to put the blame on personal/psychological characteristics of the individual without ever realising the nature of the problem, until I came across Dr Mehdi Allam’s commentary on the verse from the Noble Qur’aan:

 

“And certainly We have bestowed dignity on the descendants of Adam.â€

 

On which he remarked that a man is dignified only when he is responsible for his actions in line within the purpose and the context of the granted freedoms from Allah. There will be no problems as long as the individual recognises that there are greater values in life, which govern that individual in his/her principled code of conduct as granted, otherwise disaster awaits us!

 

 

P.S. I've given up most of the efforts I had in mind with regards to the socio-economic and religious crises as faced by "the target group" we've discussed not long ago (the pain still remains though).

 

WCWW

[Nur]

Nomads

 

We need volunteer Diamonds to the unfolding soical reconstruction job in Somalia, You are needed to make a difference wherever you are, share your precious ideas on this board.

 

 

Nur