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Namrood’s destruction was at hand. Allah Ta’ala had given him enough time to reform. But he imagined he had himself to thank for the respite he had been granted. He had become more and more cruel and unjust. His despotism knew no bounds. He summoned Hazrat Ibrahim (Alaihis Salaam) and said to him, “Tell your Allah that I neither fear Him nor need Him! Go tell Him that the whole world is in awe of me. All people are obedient to my command. If He is the God of heaven, I am God of the earth. Where are His armies? If the sky fell on my troops, they could hold it up with their lances. Tell Him I challenge Him to a battle. He has no say on earth. The whole earth belongs to me; it is my kingdom!”
The answer was revealed to Hazrat Ibrahim (Alaihis Salaam): “Let him come to such and such a place, where I shall do battle with him!” The venerable Ibrahim Khaleelullah (Alaihis Salaam) passed the news to Namrood.
On the day appointed, the brigades and regiments assembled on the battlefield, forming themselves in ranks. The Glorified and Exalted Rabb gave His army of mosquitoes their orders, and then sent these humble creatures into action against the proud and stubborn unbeliever who claimed to be deity. The skies turned black as Namrood’s horde stood ready for battle. When the order was given, the host of mosquitoes hurled themselves in their hundreds of millions against the army of the enemy of Allah. They filled the soldiers’ mouths, eyes and ears, biting with a vengeance. When the cavalry horses met the mosquitoes’ onslaught, they started to bolt in all directions, unseating their riders as they fled. In the space of half an hour, destruction had overtaken Namrood’s army, more than a hundred thousand strong.
Namrood himself left the battlefield, taking refuge in one of his castles. He thought he had saved his life by stopping up all doors and windows. In spite of the great miracle he had witnessed, he could not bring himself to repent and accept the Oneness of Allah Ta’ala. How could he do so, without overcoming his arrogance and pride? The scoundrel was wilfully obstinate in his disbelief.
One lame mosquito, with a damaged wing, had been unable to obey the Divine Command to attack this stubborn infidel. It now addresses itself to Allah Ta’ala, saying, “Oh Allah, what a sinful and luckless creature I must be, that You should deprive me of my share in this battle. If only my leg and my wing had been sound, I would have done my bit in fighting this enemy of Yours!” Almighty Allah, Lord of the worlds, then gave it the command, “Go now! You destroy that accursed one!”
The lame mosquito made its way, limping to the castle where Namrood was hiding. Getting in through a keyhole, it went and settled on Namrood’s knee. There it rested, recovering from its exhaustion. Namrood spotted the insect and tried to kill it, but the mosquito settled on his other knee. As it rested there, it seemed to say, “You once told the venerable Ibrahim (Alaihis Salaam) that you had the power of life and death. You sought to prove it by killing one man and letting another go free. Come, what is stopping you from killing me now?”
Namrood could not kill the insect, no matter how hard he tried. Allah Ta’ala was demonstrating his weakness to him, as if to say, “Unless I will it, you cannot kill! When you killed men by My will, you imagined that you had granted them death. Look, you are a nonentity. You used the kingdom I gave you as a pretext for disobeying Me. You are nothing! What has become of the arrogance of yours? Where are your armies? Where is your divinity? Look, you have been conquered by that humble creature of Mine, the mosquito. You have been disgraced!”
For all his efforts Namrood still could not kill the mosquito, which now went up inside his nose. Once upon a time, Namrood had wanted to burn Hazrat Ibrahim (Alaihis Salaam) in the fire, but in that he had also failed. The fire would not burn. Fire is only the secondary cause, the Real Cause being Almighty Allah.
The mosquito started eating the membrane of Namrood’s brain. The tyrant beat his head from rock to rock. Now he had really begun to feel the pain of his defeat. He had felt no sympathy for the hundred thousand soldiers he had left on the battlefield, nor for their bereaved parents. His only thought had been to save his filthy skin and rotten soul by running to hide in his castle; but hiding could not save him from the dreaded claws of death.
How many lives he had slaughtered, how many houses he had destroyed, how many brains he had dashed out. Now he was dashing his own head against the rocks and walls; now he was suffering himself the pain he had inflicted on others. Those people who oppress others should take heed of Namrood’s condition and remember that Allah Ta’ala will give you enough time and respite, but the day His Wrath befalls you then there is no escape.
Namrood appointed salaried officials to hit him on the head with mallets. The blows gave him a brief respite, since they interrupted the insect’s work. As soon as the mosquito began eating his brain once more, he would cry, “Help! Hit me!” He would get angry with those who did not hit him hard enough, while he increased the salaries of those who were hard hitters.
The so called ‘God of the earth’ was being beaten by his own servants. One day, one of these servants wielded the mallet too hard, and Namrood’s evil soul departed. They laid his filthy corpse in the pit of hell which was his grave.
We should learn from this incident that arrogance and pride will lead us to nothing but destruction in both the worlds. The more arrogant one is the more disgraced one would end up. This can be seen from the fact that Namrood gave himself such a high status that he considered himself as God, yet he was disgracefully defeated by one of the weakest and most humble creatures of Allah Ta’ala. This is the Qudrat of Allah Ta’ala. And the more we remind ourselves of the Power of Allah Ta’ala and His Bounties, the further away arrogance and pride will be from us because we will realize that everything that we have achieved and attained is due to the Blessings that Allah Ta’ala has bestowed upon us, not because of our own doings. That is why Fakhrul Islam Qutbe Mauritius Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Ibrahim Khushtar Siddiqui Qadri Razvi (Rahmatullah Alaih) used to always say, “I am Nothing, He is Everything.” The more Allah Ta’ala raised his status, the more he crumbled himself with a quality of nothingness before the All-Powerful and Exalted Rabb.
May Allah Ta’ala save us from pride and arrogance and may He in His Infinite Mercy grant us the Taufeeq to constantly remind ourselves that “I am Nothing, He is Everything,” Ameen.
[Compiled from Irshad: Wisdom of a Sufi Master by Shaikh Muzaffer Al Jerrahi]
