“O Haaris! Do you know what this conch say?”

According to authentic chains Haaris Aawar has narrated: One day I was going to the city of Heerah with Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali. By chance we came across a church wherein they were blowing a conch. ‘Ali asked me, “O Haaris! Do you know what this conch say?” I replied, “Allah and His Messenger and his brother know better.” He said, “It is describing the world and its evils and says: I give witness to the oneness of Allah; that He is Truth; He is Truth. Verily the world has deceived us and have made us careless about the Hereafter and destroyed our intelligence and have misguided us. O sons of the world! Postpone your worldly affairs. O son of the world you are being crushed every day under calamities. For gathering worldly wealth either all of you will destroy one another or you will vanish very soon. O son of the world! How long will you go on collecting material properties? The world destroys one century after another century (‘Qarn means either a period of 100 years or of 30 years) Not a single year of our age passes by without the weakening of one or the other limb of our body. Doubtlessly we have destroyed our permanent abode and made the transient house our residence. We do not feel this loss now in the world but will realize only after death (with no avail).” Thereafter Amir al-Mu’minin asked me, “O Harris! Do the Christians follow this call of the conch? Had they followed it they would have never made ‘Isa a partner of Allah. Harris says he went to a Christian the next day who lived in that church. I told him for the sake of Jesus please blow this conch as you were blowing it earlier. He began blowing it and I began to compare each and every phrase of ‘Ali with its tune and found that it tallied fully. Hearing all this the Christian asked me: By the truth of your Prophet, please tell me who told you all this? Harris said, The great man who accompanied me here yesterday acquainted me with this call of the conch. He enquired whether he (‘Ali was related to the Prophet? I said, He is his cousin. Then he asked whether he had heard this from the Prophet? I said, Yes. Hearing this that Christian became a Muslim and said, By Allah, I have read in Torah that the last Prophet will explain the call of the conch. “ Reference: Hayat Al-Qulub, Vol. 1, Stories of the Prophets