Smoke

بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم
In the Name of Allah,
the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

 

Once upon a time there was a man called Hatem.
He was a rich and generous man. He had many
herds of animals that grazed in the grassy fields,
and he loved to share his wealth with others.

Hatem had a pitch-black horse called Smoke.
Everybody admired this horse for its speed. It
ran like a flying eagle. Hatem regarded Smoke
as the apple of his eye, and he would not give it
up for anything.

Finally, the fame of Hatem's wealth and his
beautiful horse reached the ears of the Sultan.
When the Sultan heard about him he called his
Grand Vizier and said : 

''I want to test Hatem's generosity. Ask him to 
give me Smoke. Let's see what he does.''

The Sultan's men set off the next day. One night
when it was raining very hard they reached Hatem's
house and became his guests.

Hatem greeted them with joy and warmth. He ordered
his servants to prepare food for his guests. Soon an
excellent table was set for dinner and they all sat down
to eat. After the meal the guests were put up in very
comfortable beds, where they slept soundly.

The next morning when the guests explained why they
had come, Hatem became very sad and didn't know what
to do in his great sorrow.

''What a pity!''  he said, ''I wished you had told me what 
the Sultan wanted as soon as you had arrived. I know 
that you love horsemeat, and last night, as due to the 
bad weather I couldn't find anything else to offer you.
So, I slaughtered Smoke last night for us to eat, as I had
no other alternative.''

But even Hatem's generosity paled next to our Prophetصلى الله عليه وسلم's,
who once gave a single man a gift of a hundred camels!
  
Our glorious Prophetصلى الله عليه وسلم stated in the following
hadith how great a character trait generosity was :

''A generous person is close to Allah,
close to human beings, close to Paradise,
and far from Hell.''

السَّخِىُّ قَرِيبٌ مِن اللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ مِن الجَنَّةِ
قَرِيبٌ مِن النَّاسِ بَعِيدٌ مِن النَّالرِ
رواه الترمذى