A woman in distress once came to the renowned student of Imaam Ahmad bin Hambal (rahimahullah), Baqiyy bin Makhlad (rahimahullah), and begged him for help. She cried to him saying, \u201cMy beloved son has been taken prisoner by the Romans. My grief at his loss and yearning to meet him is such that I am unable to sleep for even a moment of the entire night. All I possess is my small home and I can find nobody to purchase it from me. Will you please find someone who will pay my son\u2019s ransom? Days and nights have passed and I can find no solace, no peace and no happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baqiyy (rahimahullah) replied, \u201cYou may return home. I will try to see to your problem insha-Allah.\u201d Saying this he lowered his head and began making earnest du\u2018aa to Allah Ta\u2018ala for the freedom of the son. Just a few days had passed when the woman came back to Baqiyy (rahimahullah) \u2013 this time with her son! She made du\u2018aa for Baqiyy (rahimahullah) and said to him, \u201cListen to his story, may Allah Ta\u2018ala have mercy on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baqiyy (rahimahullah) asked the son, \u201cWhat happened to you?\u201d He replied, \u201cI was taken prisoner by the soldiers of one of the Roman kings. I belonged to a group of prisoners who would be forced to labor in the desert every day. We would labor until sunset after which the guard supervising us would escort us back in our chains. One day while returning, to my utter surprise, the shackles around my ankles fell off on their own! The guards in charge of me immediately began swearing at me and demanded to know why I took the shackles off. I pleaded with them saying, \u2018No! I didn\u2019t! By Allah it fell off on its own without me even realizing it!\u2019 Since I was now unfettered they called the blacksmith. When he arrived he clad me in a new pair of shackles \u2013 but to no avail. I stood up and had only taken a few steps when the new shackles also miraculously fell off. They were completely puzzled and perplexed, so they summoned their priest and asked him what to do. He asked me, \u2018Do you have a mother?\u2019 When I replied in the affirmative he said, \u2018It seems that she has made du\u2018aa for you and it has been accepted. It is better that you are set free.\u2019 So they released me and even guarded me until I reached the border of the Islamic territories.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he heard this, Baqiyy (rahimahullah) enquired, \u201cOn which day and at what time did your shackles fall off?\u201d When the boy replied, they realized that it was the exact moment that Baqiyy (rahimahullah) had raised his hands to Allah Ta\u2018ala in du\u2018aa. (Al-Muntazam li Ibnil Jawzi \u2013 vol. 12, pg. 274)<\/p>\n
Lesson:<\/strong> Everybody has his own \u201cshackles\u201d \u2013 be it a problem in marriage, the desire for a child, or a financial burden. Each and every person has the ability to raise his or her hands and beg from Allah Ta\u2018ala. When the power of sincere du\u2018aa is unleashed, a person will be able to free himself from the fetters frustrating and binding him, sometimes for years. Du\u2018aa is indeed the solution to our every sorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirational-incidents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12028,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions\/12028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alhaadi.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}