A True Story
The requests fell upon him in a heap and followed one another with insistence and without interruption. “She is an old woman, and advanced in age; moreover, you can see nothing of her behind her dark black veil. As for you, you are a virtuous and magnanimous man who is known for his piety and probity, and nobody thinks any wrong of you. She is a rich woman and her family has excessive wealth, so she may overwhelm you with her money so that it will even suffice for your grandchildren”.
The speaker was the eldest son of Sheikh Eissa Abi Shamsud-Deen Al-Kordi (may God have mercy upon him), who was furious at his father. The sheikh had refused to respond to the request of a number of people who had come to him to seek his aid. They had brought an old woman to him, and were asking him to massage her so that she might be cured of her illness. Although they offered him two golden liras for this service, he answered them with his known inflexibility and famous attitude: “I am not a person who may ever exceed any of God’s bounds. Whatever the specifics of a case may be, there should be no playing or illusion in religion. If a man is forbidden to get together with a strange woman, how then can he touch her?!”
But they said: “Oh, sheikh! Oh sir! Do not touch her with your hand; only massage her with your stick from afar”.
Yet he also rejected this suggestion until they despaired of him and left the house without hope, without any result, and without a massage for the woman.
His son, who had seen what had happened, was aflame with rage. He turned towards his venerable father, saying, “Oh, father! Don’t you see the poverty from which we suffer and our need of those two golden liras?[35] She is a rich woman, so what would be wrong with your massaging her with a stick?! You would not touch her body. You would not even see her from behind her dark black veil.”
With pure eyes, the father gazed at his son and said: “Oh my son! In the course of time, people would not say that I massaged her with a stick from behind a thick veil without seeing her, or that she was an old woman, but they will only say: ‘Sheikh Eissa massaged a woman’. Those who do not know the true story will exploit it and take it as a pretext for getting together with simple-minded women, to massage them without the use of any veil or covering. Thus, shameful deeds will be committed in my name, and violations will take place alongside things that are prohibited, until God’s bounds are exceeded. So I do not make my neck a bridge leading to hellfire for nothing but my own vanity and transitory money. Be sure, son! God never forgets me, and He is the best Provider”.