A Single Bite of an Apple

This story is popular in the Islamic world, among historians, and social observers. A young man named Tsabit bin Zutho lived during the early Umayyad period in 7th-century Iraq. Tsabit found an apple floating in a river on the outskirts of the city of Kufah. The young man, who was hungry, picked up the apple and ate it. After just one bite, Tsabit came to his senses. He felt guilty for eating the apple without the owner’s permission.

Tsabit traced the edge of the riverbank, searching for the origin of the red apple. Every time he met someone, he asked if they owned the apple orchard from which the fruit he had eaten came, showing them the remains of the apple. No one claimed it. Tsabit continued walking a considerable distance without despair until he found an apple orchard, whose leaves and branches hung over the river.

In the orchard, Tsabit met a man and conveyed his apology for eating the apple. It turned out the man was not the owner of the orchard, but merely a caretaker who did not have the right to forgive him. The caretaker then mentioned that the owner’s house was very far from there, about eight kilometres away.

Tsabit eventually found the owner of the orchard. After knocking on the door and greeting him, he explained his purpose to the elderly man who owned the apple orchard. The owner of the apple orchard judged Tsabit to be an honest young man. However, he did not simply let the matter of the eaten apple go, even though it was only a single bite. He set a condition.

‘Young man, the condition is that you must marry my daughter. She is blind, mute, deaf, and lame. If you agree, I will forgive the piece of apple you have eaten,’ said the old man.

Tsabit, a handsome young man, paused to reflect. If he refused, that single bite of apple would become forbidden food for him, flowing through his body. Tsabit had no choice. He feared the sin of consuming what was forbidden. In the end, he agreed to the condition.

After the Isha prayer, as the old man had requested, Tsabit returned to the apple owner’s house. The marriage took place. And how shocked Tsabit was. The wife he had just married was not as described by the apple owner, who was now his father-in-law. His wife was not only beautiful, but also not lame, not blind, not mute, and not deaf.

Curious, Tsabit asked about what his father-in-law had mentioned. His wife answered gently, ‘By Allah, my father spoke the truth. I am blind because I have never seen anything that incurs Allah’s wrath. I am mute because I have never uttered a sentence that makes Allah angry. I am deaf because I have never heard a sentence, except that within it lies Allah’s pleasure. I am lame because I have never stepped my foot into a place that incurs Allah’s wrath.’