Scattered Pearls — Page 16
15 most ardent obedience to the behests and preferences of the. Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing of Allah be on him). Even in apparently small matters he derived a characteristic satisfaction by observing the preferences of the Holy Prophet that we find recorded faithfully and minutely in works of the Hadeeth. Here I would refer to only two such incidents, which at first glance seem to be very small and unimportant, but in fact they are most revealing, for in many things it is a man's behaviour in such small matters which supplies the real key to his character and mental make up. It so happened once that the Promised Messiah had gone to Gurdaspur in connection with a criminal case instituted against him, in sheer injustice, by a man, Maulvee Karam Deen by name. . It was the hottest part of the year, and night time. A bed was prepared for him on the roof of the house, for comparative coolness and a little open air. When however, the Promised Messiah went up to retire for the night, he found that the roof had no mundair (low parapet), and in a tone of a degree of annoyance he said to the attendants : "Do you not know that the Holy Prophet has forbidden that anyone should sleep on a roof which had no mundair. " (Seeratul Mahdee). . But it so happened that in the building at the disposal of the party there was no other open space even on the ground floor where a bedstead could be placed for the. Promised Messiah. He, therefore, preferred to sleep inside a hot room, rather than do something for which the Holy. Prophet had expressed disapproval, though another man in his place would have treated the occasion as a rather exceptional case, pleading in his own mind that perhaps there was no harm in overlooking a preference of the. Holy Prophet in a small thing of this kind. The Promised. Messiah refrained from sleeping on the open roof, and spent a most inconvenient and uncomfortable night, not because there was any real danger in sleeping on the roof, but because the Holy Prophet had disliked that any one should do so.