“There was a king before you,” said the Prophet ﷺ, “and he had a magician.”
When the magician grew old, he asked the king to send him a boy, so he could teach him magic.
The king sent him a boy. The hadith gives no name, no place and no date.
On the boy's way to the magician sat a monk. The boy sat with him, listened, and liked what he heard.
In at-Tirmidhî's version, the monk tells him: “I worship only Allah.”
He kept stopping at the monk's and reached the magician late. The magician beat him.
The monk gave him a way out: “If the magician worries you, say: my family kept me.”
“And if your family worries you, say: the magician kept me.”
One day a huge beast blocked the road, and the people could not pass.
The boy said: today I will know which is better, the magician or the monk.
He took a stone and said: “O Allah, if the monk's way is dearer to You than the magician's, kill this beast.”
He threw the stone. The beast died, and the people went on their way.
The boy told the monk, who said: “My son, today you are better than me.”
“You will be tested. And if you are tested, do not lead them to me.”
The boy began to cure the blind and the lepers, and to treat people for every illness.
A companion of the king, who had gone blind, came with many gifts: “All this is yours if you cure me.”
The boy said: “I cure no one. It is Allah who cures.”
“If you believe in Allah, I will ask Allah, and He will cure you.” The man believed, and Allah cured him.
Do the people think that they will be left to say, “We believe” and they will not be tried?
The monk had warned him. In the next chapter, the test reaches the king's palace.
The Prophet ﷺ told of a king, a magician, a monk and a boy.
Everything in this book comes from his words, as Sahih Muslim reports them.
The boy could have taken the gifts and the fame. He pointed people to Allah instead.
Tonight, when someone thanks you, answer “Al-hamdu lillâh”, and mean it: the good came from Allah.