Inspirations

Saying لا إله إلا اللّه (Story)

There was a shaykh who used to teach his students 'Aqeeda (creed). He taught them لا إله إلا اللّه (there is no deity worthy of worship except Allaah) and explained it to them following the way the prophet taught his companions creed & inculcated it in their minds.

One day, one of the students brought a parrot as a pet for the teacher. As time passed by, the teacher became fond of the parrot so much so that he took it along with him to his classes till the parrot learnt to say لا إله إلا اللّه (laa ilaaha illa Allah). It used to sound it often & repeat it day and night.

On a fateful day, the students came & saw their shaykh weeping seriously & sobbing. When they asked him the reason for that, he said: "A cat in the house has killed the parrot."

"Is this the reason why you are crying?"

The shaykh replied saying, "I am not crying because of this. But, what made me cry was that when the cat attacked the parrot, it screamed & cried till it died. Despite how often it used to repeat the statement "laa ilaaha illa Allah" it could not say it when the cat pounced on it.

The parrot could not but only squeak & squeal because it was only making sound with the statement without realizing its meaning in the mind or feeling it."

Then, he added by saying: "I fear that we should not be like this parrot. We live our lives repeating "la ilaaha illa Allah" on our tongue & when death comes to us we forget it because it is not infused in our mind."

The students started weeping with fear of insincerity in professing "there is no other deity worthy of worship except Allah".

اللهم اجعل آخر كلامنا من هذه الدنيا لا إله إلا الله. آمين، ثم آمين.

(O Allah! Make our last words in this dunya be Laa ilaaha illa Allah! Ameen, ameen.)