True Story

Malik ibn Dinar (may Allah be pleased with him) was a pious and obedient imam. No body imagined that he had once been a harsh and disobedient man. The story of his repentance shows us that no body is too bad to be accepted. Ibn Dinar was one of the most oppressive people. Because he used to be an unjust and alcoholic person who also practiced usury, he was disliked and avoided by people. He had a little daughter whom he loved profoundly. After her death at the tender age of three, he, distraught and engulfed with sadness, drank until he lost his consciousness.

On that night, he had a dream that he was witnessing the Day of Judgment, and that a horrendous snake was chasing him. Terrified and unable to escape, Ibn Dinar saw no one but an old man toward whom he ran seeking help. The old man was too weak to help him, but he pointed toward another direction, in which Ibn Dinar ran until he found himself at the edge of a cliff leading to Hellfire.

Horrified, Ibn Dinar ran back to the old man and begged for rescue. The old man cried and told him, “I am weak, just as you see. I cannot help you.” Then he told Ibn Dinar to run in another direction, which Ibn Dinar did. As he was running, the snake was so near to him that it almost seized him.

All of a sudden, he saw his young daughter, who came to her father’ aid and rescued him from the snake. Overjoyed, yet still in a state of great fear due to what had just happened, Ibn Dinar took his daughter’s hand and sat with her as they used to sit together when she was alive. Then the daughter posed the following question to her father: O my father