Whose Garden Is This?

The Prophet ﷺ told us the story of a man who lived among the nations that came before us.

One day, this man was walking through a vast, uninhabited land when he suddenly heard something astonishing.

A voice came from a cloud.

It said:

— Water the garden of so-and-so.

A name had just been spoken.

Then the cloud moved away in a direction.

The man then saw the cloud pour its water onto a harrah, a land covered with black stones.

The rain had just fallen, but the man was about to witness something special.

All the water gathered in one of the natural channels of that land, then it began to flow.

Intrigued, the man decided to follow the water.

He continued until its course led him to a garden.

In that garden there was a man.

He stood in the middle of his land and directed the water with a kind of hoe, to make it flow through his garden.

The man who had followed the water then addressed the owner:

— Servant of Allah, what is your name?

The owner answered him.

It was exactly the name that the voice had spoken in the cloud.

The owner of the garden then asked him:

— Servant of Allah, why do you ask me my name?

The man told him what had just happened:

— I heard a voice in the cloud from which this water comes say: “Water the garden of so-and-so,” pronouncing your name.

Then he asked him a question:

— What do you do with this garden?

He wanted to know what this man did with everything his garden produced.

The Owner's Secret

The owner replied:

— Since you tell me this, here is what I do.

When his garden produced its fruits and harvests, he looked at everything Allah had given him, then he divided this produce into three parts.

He explained:

— I give one third in charity.

So he did not keep all his harvest for himself.

A part was given for Allah.

In another version of this story, the owner explains more precisely that he gave this part to the poor, to those who asked for help, and to travelers in need.

But there were still two thirds left.

The owner continued:

— My family and I eat one third.

So he devoted a second part of what his garden produced to his own needs and those of his family.

He did not give away everything he owned, leaving his family with nothing.

He enjoyed with them a part of what Allah had given him.

Then there remained the last third.

And this one also had its use.

The owner explained:

— And I put one third back into the garden.

This last part served for the necessary expenses to continue cultivating his land, because a garden must be maintained to keep producing.

The owner therefore used what Allah gave him with balance:

• one third was given in charity;
• one third served to feed his family and meet his needs;
• one third returned to the garden to continue cultivating it.

This is how he managed what Allah had given him.

Why This Garden?

The man who had followed the water had now obtained the answer to his question.

He had heard the name of this man spoken from a cloud.

He had seen that cloud move.

He had seen it pour its water onto a land covered with black stones.

He had followed the water when it gathered in a channel.

And this water led him precisely to the garden of the man whose name he had heard.

Why had Allah granted this favor to the owner of this garden?

Shaykh Ibn Bâz explains that it was because of his charity.

Allah had made the water reach his garden as a reward for the good he was doing.

This man gave a part of what Allah had granted him.

And Allah had blessed his garden.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymîn explains that the cloud forms by the will of Allah, moves by His will, and goes where Allah wants it to go according to His wisdom.

That day, Allah had ordered a cloud to water a very specific garden.

The garden of a man who, when Allah granted him a harvest, did not forget neither the people in need, nor his family, nor the land on which he could continue to produce.

And this is how a man walking through a vast land heard one day a voice coming from a cloud:

— Water the garden of so-and-so.