Looking for the Lost Camel
Imam Ahmad narrates this Hadith on the authority of Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him), he said:
One night I lost my camel in a very dark night. I passed by the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ ) and he asked me, “What’s wrong?” I said, “I lost my camel.”
He said, “Your camel is over there, so go and take it.”
Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said I went towards the place he told me, but I didn’t find it, so I went back to him, and he said the same thing that he had said before. So Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said I went back again and I couldn’t find it again, and so I went back to him and he went with me until we found the camel and he gave it to me.
It was a slow camel, and Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said: While I was riding it I said to myself, ‘my mother would be sad if she knew I only had a slow camel’.
The Prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wasallam) caught up to me and he said, “What did you say?” Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “I told him what I said and so he hit the back of the camel it became the fastest camel I had ever ridden; I had to hold him back by its reins.”
In this Hadith we see how the Prophet (ﷺ ) cared about the lost camel of Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) and went himself (ﷺ ) to find it. This is how he was: his greatness was in humility and his greatness was in his caring about every single one of the Muslims. Allah SWT says in the Quran: ‘It is grave upon him that which is hard on you’ (9:128).
Of our greatest blessings is that we are from his Ummah. ﷺ .
