The pain of a troubled father – A remarkable hadith

From the book: Maariful Quran
By: Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi Usmani
Translated by: Muhammad Shamim
Volume 4, Surah 17 (Bani Israil) Commentary of the Verse 22-25, Page 485 – 497

The pain of a troubled father – A remarkable hadith

Al-Qurtubi has reported from Sayyidna Jabir ibn Abdullah (RA) that a man came to the Holy Prophet and complained that his father was taking away what belonged to him. He said,

“Go and ask your father to come here.”

Right then, came Sayyidna Jibrail and told the Holy Prophet SAWS,

“When his father comes, ask him about the words he has composed in his heart and which his own ears have not heard yet.”

When this man returned with his father, he (SAWS) said to the father,

“Why is it that your son complains against you? Do you wish to take away what belongs to him?”

The father said,

“You better ask him on whom do I spend other than his paternal or maternal aunts or myself”

The Holy Prophet SAWS said: (an expression which denoted that he had understood the reality and there was no need to say anything else). After that, he asked the father of the man,

“What are those words that have not yet been heard by your own ears?”

The father said, “O Rasulallah, Allah Taala increases our faith in you through everything.” Thereby he meant that he (SAWS) got to know what was not heard by anyone, which was a miracle indeed. Then, he submitted,

“It is true that I had composed some lines of poetry within my heart, something not heard even by my own ears.”

The Holy Prophet SAWS said, “Let us hear them.” Then he recited the following lines of poetry he had composed:

I fed you in childhood and took care of you when young. You lived on my earnings alone.

When on some night, you became sick, I spent the whole night remaining awake and restless because of your sickness

As if your sickness was my own and not yours and because of which my eyes kept shedding tears throughout the night

My heart kept trembling lest something happens to you, though I knew that the time of death is fixed, being neither early nor late

So, when you reached the age and maturity that I had always been looking
forward to

Then you made hard-heartedness and harshness my return as if you were the one doing me favors and giving me rewards

Alas, if it was not possible for you to fulfill my right as a father, you could have at the least done what a good neighbor would have done

So, you could have given me the least right of a neighbor and abstained from becoming miserly in my case in my own property.

After having heard these verses of poetry, the Holy Prophet SAWS held the son by his shirt and said: Go, You and your property, everything belongs to your father.
(Tafsir al-Qurtubi, p. 246, V. 10)

These verses have also been reported in Hamasah, the famous book of Arabic literature as attributed to the poet, Umaiyyah ibn Abi as-Sult. Others say that Abd al-Ala wrote them. Still others attribute them to Abu al-‘Abbas al-Ama. (Al-Qurtubi, marginal notes)