STORIES/HISTOIRES

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THE PERFECT HEART

The Perfect Heart

Read this touching story

All the way to the end...

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town

proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart

in the whole valley.

A large crowd gathered

and they all admired his heart for it was perfect.

There was not a mark or a flaw in it.

Yes, they all agreed it truly was

the most beautiful heart they had ever seen.

The young man was very proud and boasted

more loudly about his beautiful heart.

Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd

and said:

"Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine."

The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart.

It was beating strongly, but full of scars,

it had places where pieces had been removed

and other pieces put in,

but they didn't fit quite right

and there were several jagged edges.

In fact, in some places there were deep gouges

where whole pieces were missing.

The people stared –

how can he say his heart is more beautiful, they thought?

The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its state and laughed.

"You must be joking," he said.

"Compare your heart with mine,

mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears."

"Yes," said the old man,

"yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you.

You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love –

I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them,

and often they give me a piece of their heart

which fits into the empty place in my heart,

but because the pieces aren't exact,

I have some rough edges, which I cherish,

because they remind me of the love we shared.

Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away,

and the other person hasn't returned

a piece of his heart to me.

These are the empty gouges -- giving love is taking a chance.

Although these gouges are painful, they stay open,

reminding me of the love I have for these people too,

and I hope someday they may return

and fill the space I have waiting.

So now do you see what true beauty is?"

The young man stood silently with tears

running down his cheeks.

He walked up to the old man,

reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart,

and ripped a piece out.

He offered it to the old man with trembling hands.

The old man took his offering,

placed it in his heart and then took a piece

from his old scarred heart

and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart.

It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges.

The young man looked at his heart,

not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever,

since love from the old man's heart flowed into his.

They embraced and walked away side by side.

ALLAH SEES EVERYTHING!!!

Allah Knows EVERYTHING

Mr Hasan had three sons:

Faruq, Abdullah and Qasim.

He loved them very much. He wanted them to grow up as good Muslims. Mr Hasan himself was a good Muslim. He did his best to obey all the commands of Allah.

One day, Mr Hasan wanted to test his sons. He gave each of them some sweets and said, “Eat your sweets in such a place where you think no one can see you, and when you have done so, come back to me”.

Faruq took the sweets and went to his room. He shut the door from the inside and ate the sweets, thinking that no one could, see him there.

Abdullah went to the cellar of the house and he was sure that nobody was there. He ate the sweets in the darkness of cellar.

Qasim thought and thought about a place where he could eat the sweets without anyone seeing him.

He could think of no such place. Every time he thought of a place he remembered Allah was watching him and he did not eat the sweets.

Faruq and Abdullah came back and told Mr Hasan about what they did. Qasim came and returned the sweets to his father saying, “There is no place which is secret from Allah and so I did not eat the sweets.”

Mr Hasan was very pleased with Qasim. He told Faruq and Abdullah to learn a lesson from their brother Qasim. Mr Hasan also said, “My dear sons always keep in mind that Allah knows everything and He sees everything. He is with us all the time. So we should not do anything bad, even in secret.”

Taken from the book - Islam for younger people

A STORY OF FORGIVENESS

This is a story of two friends walking through the desert. At a specific point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was upset, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand:

"Today my best friend slapped me in the face"

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis (a watering place in the desert), where they decided to have a wash. The friend that got slapped started drowning and his friend saved him. When he recovered on the fright, he wrote on a stone:

"Today my best friend saved my life"

The friend who saved and slapped the other one, asked "Why, after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you have written on a stone?"

His friend, smiling, replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness will blow it away. When something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone, like the hearts memory, where no wind can erase it"

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