Mutarif ibn Abdullah - may Allah have mercy upon him – who
was a scholar from the second generation of Muslims – saw a man wearing a cloak
and strutting boastfully.
So he said to the man: ”O slave of Allah, this is the type of
boastful strutting of those whom Allah hates.”
The man replied: ”Don’t you know who I am?!”
This man was wearing this beautiful cloak, and his appearance
was attractive, and he was strutting, and someone has the nerve to speak to him
in this manner?! Thus he replied to him: Don’t you know who I am?! Meaning if you
knew who I was you would not speak to me like this.
Mutarif said: ”On the contrary, of course I know who you
are! You started as a sprinkled drop of sperm, you will end as a soiled
corpse, and in the meantime you are carrying around feces (in your intestine). I
know who you are!”
Thus the man went about his way and he no longer
strutted. These words of Mutarif taught this man some manners.
Translated by Rasheed ibn Estes Barbee
Translated by Rasheed ibn Estes Barbee
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