Miracle 109: Imam Ali (a.s.) Helps a Grief-Stricken Lady

Ibn Al Jowzy who was from the Hanbali sect, narrates in the book ‘Tazkirat al-Khawas’,

‘Abdullah Bin Al-Mubarak used to perform Hajj one year and Umrah one year for fifty years. He went out in one of the years for performing Hajj and took five hundred Dinars with him to buy a camel from Kufa and later proceed for Hajj. He saw an Alawite woman near one of the garbage dumps plucking the feathers off a dead duck.

He (Abdullah bin al-Mubarak) said, ‘I went to her and said, ‘why are you doing this?’ She said, ‘O servant of Allah! Do not ask about what does not concern you’.

He said, ‘Something occurred in my mind from her talk, so I insisted upon her.

She said, ‘O servant of Allah! You are requesting me to uncover my secret to you. I am an Alawite woman and there are four daughters for me who are orphans. Their father has died recently, and this is the fourth day we have not eaten anything, so eating the dead is permissible for us. So, I shall take this dead duck, prepare it and carry it to my daughters for them to eat it’’.

He said, ‘I said to myself, woe be unto you, O Ibn Al-Mubarak! Where are you from this?’ So, I said, ‘spread your veil!’ then I poured the Dinars in her veil, she had lowered her head, and went away without turning’.

He said, ‘And I went back to my place of stay in Kufa and Allah, removed the desire to perform Hajj that year from my heart. I stayed there for a while, then I started preparing to go to my city. Meanwhile, the people who had gone for Hajj started returning. I went out and met my neighbour and my companions.

I went to the them and would congratulate them saying, ‘May Allah accept your Hajj and your striving’, and they would reply to me, ‘May Allah accept your Hajj and striving as well. We were together at such and place’. And lot of people said similar words to me.

I spent the night thoughtful. When I sent to sleep, I saw Holy Prophet (s.a.w.a.) in my dream and he was saying to me: ‘O Servant of Allah! Do not be astounded, for you had provided for a grief-stricken one from my children, so I asked Allah to create an angel who resembles you and this angel will perform Hajj on your behalf every year up to the Day of Qiyamah. If you so desire, you can perform Hajj, and if you so desire, do not perform it’’.¹

Footnotes

1. Behar al-Anwaar, Vol. 42, Chp 115, Trad 12 ↩