Blessings from Caring for One's Parents

During the time of the People of Israel, there lived a poor family. They consisted of a father and four children. The father was elderly and worn, struggling through each day. Only one of the four sons was willing to look after him. Let that son be Abdullah. ‘You do not want to care for your father because you will not receive his inheritance after his death. Let me take care of him,’ Abdullah said. Every day the son attended to his father. With gentleness and courtesy, Abdullah took care of his father’s needs. Eventually, his father died, leaving no wealth behind. Abdullah then bathed, prayed for, and buried his father’s body. After that, he returned home. That night, Abdullah dreamed of someone who looked poor but spoke arrogantly. The strange man said to him, ‘Come to this place, dig in the ground there. You will surely find 100 gold coins. Just take them!’ ‘Is there any blessing in that money?’ Abdullah asked. ‘No!’ replied the man before speeding off. The next morning, Abdullah told his wife about the dream. The woman advised him to go to the place indicated. If indeed there were 100 gold coins there, take them and spend them on daily needs. But Abdullah was reluctant. The same dream continued to recur for several nights. Each morning, his wife urged him to go to the place shown in the dream and take the money there. Abdullah remained unmoved. On the fourth night, he had a slightly different dream. For this time, the strange man who approached him said, ‘Take one coin of gold from there!’ ‘Is there any blessing in it?’ Abdullah asked. ‘Yes, there is!’ the man exclaimed before vanishing from view. In the morning, Abdullah went to the location, as instructed by the mysterious man in his dream last night. Indeed, there was a pile of money in the ground. But he only took one coin of gold. On the way home, Abdullah met a fisherman selling fish. He bought two fish from him for one gold coin. When he got home, his wife received the fish Abdullah bought. She was astonished! For inside the bellies of the two fish lay beautiful diamonds. ‘If the king knew, he would buy these diamonds for any price,’ Abdullah murmured. It did not take long for people to learn of the jewel found in Abdullah’s fish bellies. From the palace, the king came to his house to see it. The king asked, ‘What is the price of this diamond?’ ‘Gold weighing a hundredweight is no less than thirty cartloads of horses,’ Abdullah replied. Without further bargaining, the ruler agreed to pay. Soon after, a procession of palace guards arrived. Thirty horse-drawn carts carried gold to pay for Abdullah’s diamond. The next day, a soldier knocked on Abdullah’s door. It turned out the king felt that the diamond he had bought would be more beautiful if it had a mate. So the diamond in Abdullah’s fish’s belly was purchased by the king as well. ‘Do you have a mate for your diamond? If so, we will buy it at an even higher price,’ said the palace envoy. Abdullah agreed to sell it. Thus his wealth, already considerable, grew even more. Such was the blessing he felt after showing filial piety to his aging parents.