The magician and the monk
The Prophet ﷺ told of a king who had a magician. Grown old, the magician asked for a boy to teach. On his way to lessons the boy passed a monk, listened to him, and was moved by what he heard.
One day a huge beast blocked the people’s road. The boy picked up a stone and said: O Allah, if the monk’s way is dearer to You than the magician’s, kill this animal so people can pass. He threw it, the beast died, and the road opened. The monk told him: today you are better than me, and you will be tested.
“It is Allah who cures”
Through the boy’s dua, Allah cured the blind and people with leprosy. A courtier of the king who had lost his sight brought him gifts. The boy said he cured no one; Allah cures, and if the man believed in Allah, he would pray for him. He believed, and Allah gave him back his sight.
When the king asked who restored his eyesight, the courtier said: my Lord. “Do you have a lord other than me?” The courtier was tortured until he named the boy, and the boy until he named the monk. The monk and the courtier refused to leave their faith, and the king had them killed.
The mountain and the sea
The king sent the boy up a mountain with soldiers to throw him off if he would not give up his faith. The boy prayed, the mountain shook, the soldiers fell, and he walked back to the king. He was sent out to sea in a boat to be drowned; he prayed, the boat overturned, the soldiers drowned, and again he walked back.
The arrow
He told the king: you will not kill me until you do what I say. Gather the people on one plain, tie me to a tree trunk, take an arrow from my quiver and say “In the name of Allah, the Lord of the boy”, then shoot. The king did exactly that, and the boy died. The people cried out three times: we believe in the Lord of the boy.
The king had ditches dug and filled with fire for anyone who would not turn back. They held firm. A mother hesitated with her baby, and the child said: mother, be patient, you are on the truth (Sahih Muslim 3005).
Surah al-Buruj speaks of “the companions of the ditch” and the believers they burned (Quran 85:4–8). Many scholars of tafsir connect it to this hadith.
What we can take from it
- Give the credit to Allah. Every time, the boy said “It is Allah who cures.”
- Nothing can harm you unless Allah wills it. Mountain and sea could not touch him until the moment he chose to give his life for the people’s faith.
- A single young believer can change a nation.