The Parable of the Two Gardens

In Surah al-Kahf, Allah tells us of two men. To one He gave two gardens of grapevines, bordered with date palms, with crops in between and a river flowing through them. Everything a farmer could dream of — and the gardens never failed: "Each of the two gardens produced its fruit and did not fall short in anything" (18:33).

But as the harvests grew, something in the man's heart shrank. He walked into his garden one day and said to his companion: "I am greater than you in wealth and mightier in men" (18:34). Then, standing among his vines — wronging himself, the Quran notes — he said the words that sealed it: "I do not think this will ever perish. And I do not think the Hour will come..." (18:35-36).

He had stopped seeing the Giver behind the gift. The garden had become, in his mind, his own achievement, permanent and deserved.

His companion — a man with less wealth and more sight — gave him the correction the Quran preserves for all of us: "Why, when you entered your garden, did you not say: 'Masha'Allah, la quwwata illa billah' — What Allah has willed; there is no power except through Allah?" (18:39).

The rich man did not listen. And overnight, the reckoning came: "His fruits were encompassed [by ruin], and he began wringing his hands over what he had spent on it, while it had collapsed upon its trellises" (18:42). Standing in the wreckage, he finally said what he should have said among the fruit: "Oh, I wish I had not associated anyone with my Lord."

The parable ends with the verdict of all history: "There, the authority is entirely for Allah, the Truth. He is best in reward and best in outcome" (18:44).

Every one of us has a garden — a job, a family, health, a talent. The parable asks only one thing: walk into it saying Masha'Allah, la quwwata illa billah, and never mistake the fruit for something your own hands could have grown alone.