Loyalty

It was midday, and the heat was intense. Caliph Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan was seated in his palace in Damascus. From a palace window, he could clearly see the open land stretching far ahead. Suddenly, his eyes fell upon a man who was walking toward the palace barefoot, stumbling under the scorching heat. The Caliph remarked to those present, “Who could be more unfortunate than a man compelled to travel like this in such heat?”

One of the courtiers replied, “O Commander of the Faithful, perhaps some need has brought him to you.”

The Caliph said, “By Allah, if this man has come to me with a need, I will surely fulfill it.” He then ordered a servant to stand at the gate and allow the man to enter if he sought an audience.

Soon, the man was brought before the Caliph. Mu‘awiyah asked him, “What need has brought you here?”

The man replied, “I have come with a complaint. I have been wronged, and I seek justice.”

“Arab,” the Caliph asked, “who has wronged you?”

He answered, “Marwan ibn al-Hakam, whom you appointed as our governor. He has become a calamity for us. He has wronged me and my wife beyond limits. I beg you to grant me justice against him.”

The Caliph asked him to narrate his full story. The man said that he had a wife named Sa‘ad, whom he deeply loved. They owned camels and lived comfortably. Then a famine struck their region, leaving him impoverished. When Sa‘ad’s father learned of his condition, he forcibly took her away. The man complained to Marwan, who summoned Sa‘ad’s father. The father falsely claimed that Sa‘ad no longer wished to live with her poor husband.

The man requested that Sa‘ad be called to ask her consent. Marwan summoned her, but when she appeared, he was captivated by her beauty. Instead of delivering justice, Marwan turned hostile toward the husband, insulted him, imprisoned him without cause, and conspired with Sa‘ad’s father to marry her himself after forcing a divorce. When the man refused to divorce her, Marwan ordered him to be tortured until he was compelled to comply. After the waiting period, Marwan married Sa‘ad.

After narrating this, the man broke down in tears, staggered, and fainted. Anger was evident on the Caliph’s face. He declared that Marwan had violated Allah’s limits and dishonored a Muslim. He immediately wrote to Marwan, accusing him of oppression and ordering him to divorce Sa‘ad at once and send her to Damascus.

Marwan had no choice but to obey. He divorced Sa‘ad and sent her along with a companion. In a poetic letter, he admitted his wrongdoing but praised Sa‘ad’s beauty, claiming she embodied all human desires

When Sa‘ad arrived, the Caliph found her exceptionally beautiful, intelligent, and eloquent. To test the loyalty between husband and wife, he offered the man three beautiful slave women, wealth, and financial security in exchange for giving up Sa‘ad. Hearing this, the man cried out, “I came seeking justice against Marwan’s oppression. Now from whom shall I seek justice against yours?”

The Caliph smiled and said that since both men had divorced Sa‘ad, she herself would choose whom she wished. He asked her to decide between three options: the Caliph with his palace and power, Marwan with his wealth and tyranny, or her former husband with his poverty.

Sa‘ad immediately replied in verse that although her husband was poor, he was more honorable in her eyes than all others. She said she would not abandon a companion of long-standing loyalty. If she had shared prosperity with him, she would also share hardship.

Seeing her faithfulness and sincerity, the Caliph was delighted. He said he had only tested her loyalty and that this was the true character of a Muslim wife. He then ordered that both Sa‘ad and her husband be given two thousand dinars each, restoring their dignity and justice.