Meeting God’s Special Servant
This is the story of a man, favoured by God
Growing up, I have heard stories about magical people, who have kindness written all over their face. Simply looking at them brings you at peace—people who have an aura surrounding them.
I remember my teacher telling us a story about a man, to whom a lady comes up and says to him after the introduction, that I feel at peace, just by looking at you. The lady eventually embraced Islam.
I had a similar experience; this happened while I was in Mecca, for performing Hajj. We travelled in 2011; it was quite a few of us — family plus immediate relatives. It was night time; we had just concluded prayers, our accommodation was a bit far from the Holy Mosque so that we would use the taxi for the daily commute. We were not aware that before the beginning of Hajj; there is road closure immediately around the Holy Mosque. So when we reached the taxi stand, there were no cars in sight.
Here is where our problem began, we had a few elderly in our group, walking all the way to our distant accommodation was not an option, so we had no other choice except to walk to the end of the road closure, and to make matters worse, it was an uphill walk. It was a struggle for the elderly, but we finally made it with breaks.
There were quite a few taxis on the road, but a lot of people as well. Makes sense, the whole World is here for Hajj and many, whose accommodations were far away like us, did not know about the road closure.
There were no queues, and people were just randomly negotiating with the taxi drivers and in most cases would continue to wait after the negotiations were finished. I wondered why was that, so when I managed to speak with a taxi driver, I couldn't believe what he was saying. He wanted 500 riyals, a fare 10 times of what was normally asked for our hotel. This shocked me, made me angry. I started to think, how could they try to take advantage of people who have gathered from all over the world, to perform the pilgrimage at Allah’s house. I felt disgusted.
My brother and I kept trying, stopping taxi drivers and trying to negotiate a reasonable rate, but no luck. I was beginning to lose hope, it was getting late, and seeing the elderly in the group waiting on the road made me feel worse.
Then while sulking, something magical happened. I am looking down, while negative thoughts are running through my mind. I sense a presence beside me. As I look up, I see a man with his car door open. Looking at me with a smile, he had something calming about him. I go near him with no expectations and ask him how much, after explaining the location and how many we were. He said 50 riyals. I was like what? he repeated 50 riyals.
I couldn’t believe it. I told my family, they couldn't believe it!
We all sat inside his appropriately sized vehicle, and my dad started making small talk with him. When he started to talk, I started crying. I kept crying throughout the journey, hiding my face, so no one sees me. I heard him saying that he is a teacher but sometimes works as a taxi driver. On reaching our hotel, I thanked him and asked his name. It was Huzaifah.
Why was I crying? — I didn't know, was it the elegance in his speech, was it the calmness I felt when I looked at him. I didn't know.
But one thing I knew for sure, he is the man from the stories, someone who is close to God. Someone who understood life from the eyes of God.
To become like someone, from whom piety oozes, someone you can't help but respect. Is what we should all strive to become. Among many attributes, one attribute in these people is that they think about others. They put themselves second. A concept described as ‘Eesar’ in Islam, meaning sacrifice.
Huzaifah could have easily gotten more money that night, but he put others before him. In doing so, he taught me a life lesson, and I am sure his true reward of this act of kindness awaits for him in the next life.
