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It is mentioned that there was once a thief in Mosul, whose name was Ubud.  He was a professional thief and had a complete team under his command. These were professional thieves as well. Through this team, he used to carry out robberies and steal from the people’s houses on a regular basis.

 

One day, he decided to steal from the house of his neighbour so he devised a plan in this regard. They climbed on a wall next to the house of the neighbour with the intention of looking at the movements of those people so that they could know what would be the proper time to enter the house and what was the time when the people in the house went to sleep.

 

However, on the first night, when they peered into the house, they were surprised to see that the house was full of people and someone seemed to be teaching all of these people. At the same time, sound of Zikr was heard from this house.

 

Ubud decided to wait. He continued to wait in this fashion the entire night and still the people were inside the house. In the morning, he decided to return home with his team empty-handed. The next night, they began to scout the house again. They could see that the house was full of people who were being educated. In this manner, he spent the entire week scouting the house every night.  He found that there were people in the house until the morning. These people were also busy in the Zikr of Allah Almighty.

 

On the eighth day, Ubud decided to visit this neighbour whom he felt seemed to be very pious. Besides being pious, this person also helped the poor and needy and went out of his way to help Islam in general. The thief asked him, “Tell me, do you have religious classes every night in your house?” When the old man heard this, he replied, “I have stopped this many many years ago.”

 

When Ubud heard this, he revealed his entire plan and what had transpired the past seven days.

 

When the neighbour heard this, he mentioned the 38th verse of Surah Al Hajj which is:

 

اِنَّ اللہَ یُدٰفِعُ عَنِ الَّذِیۡنَ اٰمَنُوۡا ؕ اِنَّ اللہَ لَا یُحِبُّ کُلَّ خَوَّانٍ کَفُوۡرٍ ﴿٪۳۸﴾

 

“Indeed Allah repels the afflictions of the Muslims; indeed Allah does not like any extremely disloyal ingrate.”

 

When Ubud returned home, a complete transformation had taken place within him. He kept insisting that he had seen people, but the old man had mentioned that no one was at home.

(Al Faraj ba’ad Ash Shiddah waddhaik)