A True Story
Once Mr. Mohammad Amin Sheikho and his brother, the general Saleem Bey, who had come from Istanbul to visit him in Damascus, were invited to attend an official festival.
They sat together, with the son of Mr. M A Sheikho between them. Although his son was a small child of only ten years of age when he witnessed this incident, he cannot ever forget it.
Many leaders, officers and rich men had been presented with that invitation. At that time, especially on such an occasion attended by the rich, a great and famous magician was inclined to be there, who was well-known across the Middle East. The aged of this time may remember him if they were reminded of him. Due to his various imaginary shows and artifices,[23] he became widely known in Damascus although he was not Syrian.
On this particular occasion, it was not long before this magician arrived. When the invited guests saw him, some of them asked him: “What are you going to offer to us today, oh, hypnotist?”
The magician said: “Let each of you take out one golden lira and put it in his hand, and let him close his hand and close his fist over it as strongly as he can; then I am going to read over his hand, trying to open it without touching it. So, if I succeed, I will take the lira for myself. Do you agree?”
“Yes, we do!”, most of them answered.
They wanted to kill their time and to spend it playing and in fun, and in watching these wonders of which they knew nothing and without understanding their secrets. They only sought amusement and filling up their free time. The game began, and one of the wealthy guests took a golden lira out of his pocket.
He put it in his hand and closed his fist tightly.
The magician then walked towards him and stood in front of his hand, and then started his motions and murmurs. It was no more than a few minutes before all in attendance saw how the challenger’s hand began to open in spite of himself. The rich man began to tighten his fingers around the coin as strongly as he could, trying to keep it closed so as not to let it be opened, but he failed. His hand kept being opened in a magic and obscure way as if there were many people grasping it and setting about forcing it open.
Nevertheless, the man did not despair. He kept resisting and kept tightening his hand around the coin to try to stop it being opened. But, alas! It had gone out of his control.
The attendees were astonished by what they witnessed, but the victim was the most astonished of all. He spared no effort in trying to stop his hand from opening, but all of his exertions came to nothing, and his hand was opened forcibly and coercively. At last, he yielded to the fait accompli. The evil magician then stretched out his hand, taking the lira and putting it in his pocket as his mouth watered.
Thus, he had won the first round, and on this day he planned to earn more and more money through his malicious magic and cunning artifice.
It was theft of a new kind but with a license. It was open theft that had been agreed upon.
Now, it was the turn of the second challenger. He was the richest man in Damascus at that time. He had many factories in many foreign countries like Turkey, Italy, France and Switzerland.
He took a golden lira out of his pocket, put it in his fist and closed it strongly, conceited by his large body and his strong muscles.
He spared no strength and tightened his hand until its knuckles whitened, its veins protruded, and his muscles swelled.
Again, the magician approached the man and started his gesticulations and his recitation of occult murmurs.
Little by little, the closed hand began to open as if by some force that could not be seen, but that surely existed. This hidden force was opening the hand and overcoming the strong clenched grip of its owner.
The rich man increased the tightening of his hand, calling up all his energies so that he might defeat the invisible force which was obliging his hand to open.
His face congested and his temperature assuredly rose due to the great effort he was exerting in squeezing his fist closed.
He began to feel tired without getting any result from his labors. Thus, he failed and his hand became fully open, clearly showing the golden lira.
The defiant thief then took the second lira and put it in his pocket with his lips curled into a smile that was filled with guile. His eyes were as dark as the darkness of a pitch-black night and were sending sharp looks out around the room. This was the second lira that he had earned.
Mr. M A Sheikho was carefully watching the situation. He knew well the secret behind the deeds of that magician due to his deep belief in God. He could discern that the magician had no power except over people who were far from God and who deserved to be overcome.
Had those men truly resorted to God and sought His protection, the devilish consorts would have fled the scene without affecting their spirits. They would not have been able to disable them by making them lose their control of their body’s functions, nor would they have been capable of enabling the devil’s brother, the magician, to take the liras from their hands which were no longer under the control of their spirits.
Before the third man put his hand in his pocket and got caught in the hands of this wily thief, as had happened with his friends, and before the magician continued his round of all those present one by one, in accordance with the foxy deal which they had all have agreed upon, Mr. M A Sheikho acted. He was not happy to let that evil magician complete his round of those present, stealing their golden liras, as this was an act that would be disapproved of by anyone who had a free conscience. He turned towards the magician and said to him, “Come on! I accept your challenge. Come here! I face up to you.”
The magician then left the person whose turn had come and walked towards Mr. M A Sheikho, swaggering proudly in front of all the attendees.
He was quite sure of his success as he thought that there were no true believers in existence at that time.
He stood in front of Mr. M A Sheikho who addressed him, saying: “I accept your trial and your challenge on one condition: if you can open my hand and take the lira, I will give you ten more liras besides that one, but if you cannot, I want you to turn away from these actions, as this magic causes you nothing but more destruction.
“Do you agree?”
With full confidence, the magician accepted this, as his gluttony and greed for the eleven golden liras had made his heart blind.
“I will make a great profit on this day”, he thought to himself, for he knew that he would usually need many months to collect such a sum through his quackery.
General Saleem, Mr. M A Sheikho’s brother, was surprised at what he had heard from his brother. He had seen what had happened with the two men before him, so he thought that his brother would definitely lose eleven golden liras instead of only one.
So, why would he get embroiled in this game?
What for? What was wrong with him?
Trying to dissuade his brother from this course of action, he poked him lightly with his hand and secretly expressed his advice to him as if he had said: “Stop that! What is the matter with you? Is there any cause for you to throw away eleven golden liras?!”
Salah Ad-Deen, Mr. M A Sheikho’s son, sitting between his father and his uncle, noticed his uncle’s gestures of admonishment towards his father and his attempts to turn him away from this challenge.
Yet Mr. M A Sheikho paid no attention to his brother’s request, and he took out his lira.
The golden lira was a type of currency in circulation at that time which most people used, and the men there were all rich.
In spite of himself, his brother, General Saleem, stopped his motions and remained silent and quiet, and then he set to watching his brother, who put the lira in his hand and closed his fist over it in the normal way.
The magician drew near to him and stood opposite him, and then started his attack with his motions and murmurs.
How strange!! The situation did not change. It was still as it had begun.
The hand of Mr. M A Sheikho was still closed tightly and normally, while the magician was still murmuring and making different signals with his hands.
The magician spent a long time doing the same thing, but nothing changed. He kept trying and trying, murmuring, gesticulating, and making signals and motions with his hands, but all was in vain.
Indeed, the situation was still as it had been!! Although about twenty minutes had passed, the magician did not despair. He did his utmost until he became tired and exhausted.
What the boy Salah Ad-Deen saw, and what he still remembers until now, was that the magician’s disgusting and stinking sweat was flowing all over his face, wetting his chin, and then falling to the ground drop by drop.
The magician used all his so-called science and skill but alas, this time he could not achieve his goal.
Suddenly, he began to look through the window and then through the door and move his gaze between them as if he was calling for help or support!!
Whose help was he seeking?!
Who was it that he was calling upon for support?
At this point he murmured some strange and obscure words in confusion, and then his movements became jumbled. It seemed as if fear had filled his heart and wholly obsessed it.
Opposite him Mr. M A Sheikho was still sitting in his place with his hand closed around the golden lira.
He sat there, full of satisfaction and calmness. His face was brilliant and shining, with a pure epidermis that was overwhelmed with cheerfullness and happiness.
The situation had become unendurable for the magician, so he burst out shouting in a roaring and irregular voice as if he had entered a struggle to the death. He started saying to Mr. M A Sheikho, “You, bey!! You hold a name!!”
“I hold the Name of Al’lah!!”, answered Mr. M A Sheikho strongly, in a voice higher and stronger and clearer than the magician’s, that struck him and all those present as if it was the sound of rumbling thunder.
“I hold the Name of Al’lah!!” Those words rattled around that room with a terrible echo which imposed a state of silence on the place, mixed with astonishment and stupor, which prevailed over all the men there.
Yet there was also a strange and unusual feeling of delightful bliss that had flowed into the hearts of those present.
Actually, the magician had failed and what a great failure it was! It was an absolute failure.
He became sweaty, excited and inflamed; and all that he gained was total stress.
Yes, he had forfeited the round.
When he heard those words – which came to his ears like pealing thunder, and which swept away his evil and falseness – he said nothing and uttered not a single word more. Then he walked out of the place, leaving it with an insulted and abased spirit, dragging behind him the tails of his failure and his huge defeat. He was reeling as he walked and seemed about to fall, taking each step like one ashamed, with his head bowed towards the ground.
A fact had settled in his spirit that made him realize something: “This man has a strange secret. He really is a believer”. That was the sum of his knowledge.
Once again, this same meeting took place in a wonderful park in a region dependent on Damascus. It was at Abo-Shafeek’s Park on Al-Rabwa hill.
Again, many rich men and leaders were invited to attend that celebration, and once more our virtuous man Mr. M A Sheikho was one of those present.
So it was that when the magician came to that place to practice his quackery and sorcery, he was surprised to see our merciful scholar, and thus his evil and falsity were immediately defeated in the face of the truth. He felt aggrieved and humbled as he knew he would not be able to execute his tricks and magic on that day.
Begging and lowly he approached Mr. M A Sheikho and said: “Oh, bey! Please, for the sake of your beloved Al’lah! Please… Let me work... Let me earn my livelihood today… Oh, bey! Look at all the attendees, one by one: do you see any whit of goodness in any of them? All of them are far from God, and the devil is their companion, so please, leave me alone with them. I want to earn my living”.
Yet Mr. M A Sheikho paid no attention to him. The magician wanted him to leave the place so that he would be able to control the men there with his magic.
But when Mr. M A Sheikho looked at those present, he felt that all of them wanted the magician to stay. They wanted to laugh, to have fun and to enjoy his magic artifices.
He said to himself: “Since they all want the magician, I should leave them to it, as it is their own concern”.
He left them alone as there is no compulsion in religion.
Afterwards, whenever the magician saw Mr. M A Sheikho in any setting, he knew that this meant his failure, so he either fled away from him or approached him humbly, begging and cringing.