The Perfume Seller

Reading Time: 2 minutes

An edifying incident is mentioned on page 309 of the book Dārus Salām by Aqae Iraqui: The respected Aqae Abdul Husain Khawansari has related to me the following incident: “An honest perfume seller of Karbala had fallen sick. He tried the treatment of every doctor in the town but it was of no use. He spent all his property for his treatment but he was not cured. One day I went to pay him a visit. I saw him perturbed. He was instructing his son to sell off the household items. He was saying, ‘Sell off everything! I do not want anything. Either I will die or be cured!’ I asked him, ‘What do you mean?’ He sighed and answered, ‘At the beginning of my career I was not so rich. During that time an epidemic fever broke out in Karbala. The doctors prescribed lime juice as its cure. Since the disease was widespread there was a great demand for limejuice.

I began to adulterate limejuice by mixing yoghurt in it. I sold it at a very high rate. Gradually the stocks of limejuice with the other shopkeeper were finished. They began to direct their customers to me. Soon the stock of limejuice in my shop was also sold out. Now I began to sell only yoghurt by adding colour and a sour material to it. I sold this concoction as limejuice. My coffers became full and I continued to amass wealth. Today I find that all this property is of no use to me. My disease is incurable. So I wish to get rid of all the things that I obtained in this Harām manner, in the hope that after doing this, I may be cured.’ Not much time had elapsed after this incident when the perfume seller departed from this world. He was definitely indebted to those whom he had sold the adulterated limejuice.”

 Reference :Greater Sins Volume 2