Never Underestimate Anyone

There was a great time of fitnah during the lifetime of Imam Ahmad when some of core beliefs of islam were being challenged and unfortunately there were certain rulers as well of the muslim lands, who also succumbed to these incorrect belief about some issue regarding the islam and Quran and what they decided to do was, they decided to enforce their incorrect, beliefs upon everyone else so the scholar line up to debate them, to challenge them,  to state how these beliefs were incorrect. Eventually, the bad rulers began to imprisoned and even torture them and some of the scholars had been killed.

Until the last one standing was none other than Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal who was a great defender  of proper beliefs of islam. So, the ruler had call imam Ahmad a couple of times to convince him that the false teaching was right. Imam Ahmad has debate some scholars and they were all lose to him. He had presented countless evidence and make them speechless, they had no response to him, so finally the ruler, when he  got fed up with this said..

"I am  the king, I am the ruler,I'm not going to take some nonsense from some imam or syeikh, I'm not gonna have him tell me what was right and what was wrong !! I'm the ruler, Im the the king ! I am right !!! "

So, he send the soldiers to imam Ahmad's house and he said 

" I want to you chain him up, tie him like a criminal and i want you to walk him through the centre of the town, through the market place so everyone can see him and humiliated him. Then, I want you to bring him here. Then, we will lash him or torture him until he say that we are right !! "

During the time Imam Ahmad had been brought through the town, he began to think

"Ahmad what are you doing to yourself? You humiliating yourself.  Allah and His messenger had give you a way out ! You can say whatever these oppressive tyrant ruler what he want to hear as long as you believe the truth in your heart you will be fine"

Then, Imam Ahmad said  as I am thinking about this to myself I felt someone had grabbed my shirt from behind me and when I turned around I saw a young man and he seemed so familiar. The young man said,

"O imam do you know who I am ?"

He said "I am Abu Haitham" and Imam Ahmad tell us that Abu Haitham was the notorious criminal of that time in that era who was like the most wanted man.

Abu Haitham said to him " Listen ! I steal for a living, I rob people, thats what I do ! And I had been lashed for 18000 times because of my crimes. But I haven't stop doing what I do. "

He then said " I serve Shaytan for the sake of this dunya, I obey him and I listen to what he want me to do but I haven't quit just BECAUSE OF A FEW LASHES (18000 times)

After that he said,

"You serve Allah for the sake of the deen and the hereafter. DON'T YOU DARE TO EASE UP YOUR STANCE JUST BECAUSE OF FEW LASHES !! Don't you worry about few lashes. I didn't give up robbing people because of few lashes, don't you dare to give up a good things just because of a few lashes"

He said those words to me and then he let my shirt go, the soldiers dragged me on and that was the last time I ever saw him. Imam Ahmad said when Abu Haithan tell those words to me, it lit a fire inside me and I said

"I don't care what they are gonna do to me. But, I gonna stay firm" And that's what he do.

Eventually, Imam Ahmad became the reason of the preservation of proper islamic beliefs and that why Imam Ahmad before he would go to sleep, he would make a dua to Allah for Abu Haitham.

May Allah have mercy for Abu haitham. May Allah forgive him. InsyaAllah.

The moral of the story is never underestimate anyone, everyone got something to offer, everyone got a potential, limitless potential. Its just a matter of realising that ourself. So, don't underestimate yourself first and foremost. Secondly, never underestimate anyone because you don't know what they are capable of. You don't know what good deed they had done.

---Taken from Youtube :D