ON THE THRONE OF CALIPH
One day Bahlool entered Haroon's palace and saw the throne of the Caliph to be vacant and none of his guards standing nearby. Immediately he went and sat on the throne. When the court men saw him on the throne, they went forward and forced him to step down by beating him.
Bahlool started crying loudly and when Haroon entered the court, he asked him the reason for crying. The courtiers explained what had happened.
The Caliph comforted him and at the same time scolded his men for the treatment given to Bahlool., To this, Bahlool reacted by saying: "I am not crying for what has happened to me, but I am crying for you, the Caliph. I have been made to suffer so much only for sitting on the throne for a short while.
How much are you going to suffer for sitting on it for so long, because it belongs to someone else while you are the usurper of it".
Haroon was one of those pompous and oppressive kings from Banu Abbas (descendants of Abbas bin Abdul Muttalib) who had usurped the caliphate of the divinely appointed vicegerents of the Prophet.
The above incident afforded an opportunity to Bahlool to warn Haroon of the sufferings awaiting him after death. That Haroon would not be able to escape the punishment for usurping the rights of and oppressing the household members of the Prophet.
That the Prophet of Islam had foretold of the oppressive rulers to come and in what way they would gain power can be readily derived from his following saying:
"Verily times will dawn upon people When power and rule (over people) will not be attainable except with bloodshed and oppression, ner wealth except with by usurpation and miserliness"
Taken from the book “The Moral Stories (Part 2)”
Author: Ahmed .H. Sheriff
Other links:
The story of Moses and the Lost Sheep
Knowledge and wealth
