Mu’min al-Taq met with Bin Abi al-‘Awja’, the head of the unbelievers in the Arab world, and he asked him the following question:
-Whoever creates or produces something to know that it is of his creation is its creator, isn’t he?
-Yes.
-Come after a month or two months, that I may show you that!
Mu’min al-Taq said: “So I went to the Sacred House of Allah. Then I came in to Abu ‘Abd Allah (al-Sadiq), peace be on him, and told him about the affair, and he, peace be on him, said: ‘Surely he has prepared two ewes for you. He will bring out the two ewes full of worms for you in the presence of some of his companions and say to you: ‘I have created these worms.’ Say to him: ‘If they are of your creation, then distinguish the males from females.’ He will say to you: ‘This is not of your thoughts; rather you have brought it from al-Hijaz.’ Then he will ask you: ‘Do you not claim that He (Allah) is rich?’ Say: ‘Yes.’ He will also ask you: ‘Do you think that He is rich while he has neither gold nor silver?’ Say to him: ‘Yes.’ He will say to you: ‘How will this be rich?’ Say to him: ‘If riches among us on the part of gold or silver or trade, then all this is of that with which people deal, so which thing is in comparison greater and more appropriate than that which is said: ‘Who is richer-the One Who by Himself creates riches before it was a thing and makes people rich through it or he who benefits by a gift, alms, and a trade?’”
Mu’min al-Taq returned home and met with Ibn Abi al-‘Awja’. The previous talk took place between them, and the latter said to the former: “By Allah, this (thought) is not of yours! By Allah, this (thought) is of that which carried by camels!” ( Tanqeeh al-Maqal, vol. 3, p. 162.)