Rabe’a had been praying in her room late one night until she was finally overcome by weariness and fell asleep. So deep was her slumber that she stirred not a bit when a thief broke the window and climbed right in. He ransacked her belongings, taking hold of the little there was of any value, but when he went to leave, he found that the way was barred to him. There was nothing material blocking the way, mind you. Instead, somehow his conscience was playing tricks on him. He dropped the loot and departed, finding the way now open. Having made it only just around the corner, he changed his mind again and doubled back. What would his companions think if he returned empty handed? He climbed back into Rabe’a’s room where she still was sleeping soundly, having utterly exhausted herself from her devotions. The moment he took hold of her possessions, however, he found himself again unable to move. Frozen to the spot, as it were. He stood motionless, wrestling with his own conscious. Surely Allah would regard such an act to be abominable. ‘If one friend has fallen asleep, one Friend is awake and keeping watch,’ he realised, and immediately fled into the deep cover of night.
Postscript:
Curiously enough, however, when the thief returned home to his wife and explained (rather poetically) why it was that he had returned home empty handed, she expressed a joy far exceeding anything that she’d displayed for the past gifts he had brought her. ‘Surely, we shall be blessed!’ she cried, and in time indeed they were. The thief, from this night on, continuously found excuses to leave behind some of what, by virtue of his trade, was rightfully his. He never failed to relate every detail of his conscience to his wife, who ever more felt that she had married the right man, a good man.
