Question:
I would like to know if this incident is true?
It is reported that Abu Bakr al-Miski was once asked: “We always find a good scent emanating from you, why or how?”
He replied: “By Allah, for years I have not used any perfume, but the reason for the good smell has to do with what I passed through. A woman once tricked me into entering her home. Then she closed and locked the door behind her, after which she began to seduce me. I became utterly bewildered as to what I should do, for I had no options before me. I said to her: “I need to go and purify myself.” She ordered her servant to take me to the bathroom, and when I entered it, I took faeces in my hand and wiped it all over my body. Then I returned to her in that state. Shocked to see me like that, the woman ordered that I be removed from her home. I left and immediately had a bath.
That very night I saw a dream; in it, it was said to me: “You have done that which no else has ever done before. I will make your smell good and pure in this world and in the hereafter.”
When I woke up, the smell of perfume was emanating from my body, and it has continued to emanate from my body until this very moment.”
Answer:
This incident is cited in At Targhib Wat Tarhib of Imam ‘Abdullah ibn As’ad Al Yafi’i (Demise: 768 A.H) without a chain.
(At Targhib Wat Tarhib, pg. 165)
I have not come across a chain of narrators for this incident.
(Also see: Mawsu’atul Akhlaq Waz Zuhd War Raqaiq, vol. 1 pg. 281)
And Allah Ta’ala Knows best.
Answered by: Moulana Suhail Motala
Approved by: Moulana Muhammad Abasoomar
