You may have heard the story of a man who committed ninety-nine murders, and, after all these murders, he had this guilt due to which he went and asked a person that he felt was a religious person, “I have killed ninety-nine people and I am wondering if there is some way back for me.” That person told him, “No. You have gone too far. There is nothing you can do but suffer the consequences of your actions.” This fellow became enraged and killed him too, making his count an even one hundred. However, inside, he still carried this sense of guilt and remorse, because even in the mind of someone doing the worst acts is the desire to be a better person or liked by people. No one desires to be a person that everyone hates or looks down at. He went off and searched for another person and they told him , “Yes, there is a way back for you; however, you must leave the people around you and go to a different environment. This is your only hope.” The man decided to follow this advice and chose to leave the people and the things which were influencing him. So, he left that area, and as he was travelling, he died. The angels of mercy came, and the angels of punishment came, each saying, “We are going to take him.” The angels of mercy came and said, “He had repented and was on his way to start a new life and make amends for what he had done.” And the angels of punishment said, “He had not reached there yet. He does not qualify for mercy.” So, Allah (SWT) sent a third angel to decide amongst them. He said, “Why not measure the distance that he had covered against the distance that was left? If he had covered more distance, the angels of mercy will take him, and if he had more distance to go than he had covered, the angels of punishment will take him.” They did this and measured the distance and they found that he was just slightly closer to the place that he was going. In one hadith it is mentioned that Allah (SWT) ordered the earth to shrink on one side and stretch on the other side, so that when they measured it, they found him to be closer to the destination.
Through this hadith, the prophet (SAW) taught us many lessons; the first is that we should not despair from the mercy of Allah (SWT), and we should have hope that one day, we will also have the chance to make amends and that we too will make amends. The second thing we learn is that you have to do something to make up for what you have done. You cannot sit around and wish or wait for it to come to you.. If you are sitting there wishing for it, nothing is going to happen. In this case, the man was influenced by his environment in such a way that he had to make the decision to leave for the sake of his conscious and Allah (SWT)’s mercy. Similarly, there will be times when we must make the decision to leave our negative influences, otherwise there is no path of correction for us. We also learn that, when a person makes the effort to get on the path of rectification, the mercy of Allah (SWT) will come, and Allah will go out of his way to make sure things happen in your favor. In this case, the earth shrunk and stretched in an arrangement for this person because he had taken the crucial step of going out of his way to do whatever needed to be done. We learn from this the power of intention when it meets the power of action. One must hold intentions for things to happen for them; if we are not intending to do something or are not listening to the little voice in our head that says, “I want to improve” we will not see results in our lives and we will not see the impacts of our wishes.
So, we should all have in our hearts and minds the desire to improve and the desire to do whatever it takes to please Allah (SWT). The second thing involves finding the power from within us to make the decision, to do whatever it takes, to reform and do better. It will not simply happen by us sitting around; we need to take some steps. May Allah (SWT) give us tawfiq and understanding.
