A name that caused fear In the region of Khorasan, a name was well known to travelers: Al-Fudayl Ibn 'Iyâd. But this name did not reassure…
A name that caused fear
In the region of Khorasan, a name was well known to travelers:
Al-Fudayl Ibn 'Iyâd.
But this name did not reassure anyone.
Al-Fudayl was a highway robber.
A highway robber is a man who attacks travelers on the roads to take their belongings.
Accounts report that he operated especially between Abîward and Sarakhs.
Some versions mention that he led a band and attacked caravans.
A caravan is a group of travelers who move together, often with animals carrying goods.
People knew his reputation.
They knew that by taking certain roads, they could run into him.
So they warned each other:
— Watch out for Al-Fudayl!
— Beware of Al-Fudayl!
His name alone was enough to worry those who traveled.
According to some accounts, mothers even used his name to frighten their children and calm them down.
Al-Fudayl had thus become a man who was feared.
A man whose path one preferred not to cross.
And one night, he headed again toward a sin.
The wall
That night, Al-Fudayl was climbing the wall of a house.
He was thus on his way to a new disobedience.
He was climbing along the wall.
Then he heard a voice.
Someone was reciting the Quran.
And the verse that was recited was this one:
"Has the time not come for those who have believed that their hearts should be humbled by the remembrance of Allah and by what has come down of the truth?"
It was a verse from Surah Al-Hadîd.
Al-Fudayl heard it.
He heard this question:
"Has the time not come...?"
Has the time not come for hearts to be humbled before Allah?
Has the time not come to return to Him?
Al-Fudayl was there.
Climbing a wall.
On his way to a sin.
And he immediately replied:
— Yes, indeed, my Lord! The time has come.
Then he stopped.
He did not continue what he had come to do.
He climbed back down.
And he left.
A few moments earlier, he was climbing that wall to disobey Allah.
Then a single verse had just stopped him.
But this night was not yet over.
He leaves again into the night
Al-Fudayl left the place.
The verse he had just heard had caused an immediate change in him.
But he was still going to hear something.
Something very different from the Quran.
Something that was going to show him what his own name had become in the mouths of others.
Continuing on his way, he arrived near a place where several travelers had stopped.
They were talking among themselves.
Some wanted to resume the road.
One of them proposed:
— Let's go!
But another replied:
— Let's wait until morning, because Al-Fudayl is lurking nearby and might attack us.
Al-Fudayl heard these words.
These men were talking about him.
They did not necessarily know that he was nearby.
They were truly afraid to leave.
They preferred to wait.
They preferred to stay there until morning.
All because of a single man:
Al-Fudayl.
His own name
He had just heard his own name in the mouths of frightened travelers.
These men feared not only the dangers of the road.
They feared running into him.
Al-Fudayl then began to reflect on his own situation.
He said to himself:
— I have been committing sins at night, and here are Muslims who are afraid of me!
He thus realized something terrible.
While he spent his nights in disobedience, other people changed their journey simply out of fear of meeting him.
His behavior no longer concerned only his own person.
He was frightening others.
He had become a threat on their path.
And this realization came right after the verse he had just heard.
First:
"Has the time not come...?"
Then:
— Let's wait until morning, because Al-Fudayl might attack us.
Two events in the same night.
And both brought him back to the same question:
What was he doing with his life?
"O Allah, I repent"
Al-Fudayl then understood that Allah had made him reach these travelers to turn him away from what he was doing and push him to return to Him.
He made his decision.
And this time, it did not concern only the sin he had just abandoned near the wall.
He wanted to change his life.
He invoked Allah, saying:
— O Allah! Indeed, I repent to You!
To repent is to sincerely return to Allah after a sin.
It means recognizing one's fault, regretting it, abandoning it, and sincerely deciding not to return to it.
Al-Fudayl had just turned back.
But now, he was announcing something much greater:
he wanted to turn back in his entire life.
An immense decision
Al-Fudayl then decided that his repentance would be marked by a new life near the Sacred House.
The Sacred House refers to the Ka'ba, in Mecca.
So this was not just a word spoken in the heat of emotion.
He wanted to give proof of his repentance.
He wanted to abandon what he had been doing until then.
The banditry.
The sins.
The fear he inspired in travelers.
This night had begun in a very different way.
What would Al-Fudayl do now?
Would he be able to abandon the man he had been for so long?
And above all...
what could become of a bandit whose name travelers had learned to fear?
To be continued...
