Twice fallen?
Remember the part where I fell down? Well, when I feared falling again, someone said, “Nobody falls twice”. And as I reflected on how much more careful I was after the fall, I realised how true that statement is. Of course, everything that Allah wills to happen will come to pass… But when you take extra precaution, and you even make du’a, you’ll be all right insha Allah.
Learning from mistakes, from experience.
This is as the simple yet powerful hadith that goes:
A believer is not bitten from the same hole twice.
(al-Bukhari)
The hadith made so much more sense then when I read the context of it, subhan Allah. It’s so important that we learn from the past, whether recent or distant, whether our own or others’. Unfortunately, this great lesson has been abandoned by the ‘ummah as we see ourselves being constantly fooled and humiliated because we keep trusting actions that we’ve known too well to have failed numerous times in the past. Let alone, persons we’ve known too well to deceive and fall far back from promises…
But ok, even at our very own individual level, the very simple application of this hadith is forgotten. We’re bought over by soft words, persistent persuasions and exaggerated claims into doing things we know bring no benefit, are time wasters, lead us to bad things and are simply wrong. Yet we keep on getting into these things. Ok, so sometimes we don’t even need that little push to get moving in that direction. But that whisper from the devil… We fall for it every time. The excuses we come up with…
Hmm. You know what. Actually, the ‘bitten from the same hole‘ bit reminds me of the two in the cave. How Abu Bakr radhiyallahu ‘anh endured that painful sting out of pure respect and love for his companion, the Prophet sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam. Beautiful. Masha Allah. If we could even bear a fraction of that pain for the sake of a friend… Good enough, eh?
I know, what a stark jump in content lol. But meh, besides lack of articulation (yes same excuse again, pardon me, sorry, etc), the latter is such a heartwarming story and I was getting all heated up with how we make these stupid mistakes… so I needed that switch. We just gotta learn, you know?
The funny thing is that sometimes, just sometimes… you hear of similar heartwarming stories, and they’re just SO GOOD, that you totally forget they’re… fabricated. Even then, my friend, there are lessons therein. Literally from those texts, and from your brief belief in those texts.
So, what’s your Gullibility Index? ;-)
May Allah keep us guided upon truth, protect us from falsehood and help us learn from the many lessons He bestows upon us in our everyday lives. Ameen.