Once there was a devout Israelite who earned his living through selling cotton yarn. With the margins, he brought in daily bread for his family. One morning, he met one of his brethren who asked for his help, and he gave him the price of the yarn.
He then took a cracked, wooden trencher and a jar from his house to the bazaar for sale. A passerby with a stinky, swollen fish stopped by him and asked him if he would be interested in buying the fish. The Jew immediately gave him his trencher and jar, and took the fish to his family.
When they opened its belly, they found a big pearl. The astonished Jew took it to a jeweller and was delighted to be offered a thousand dirhams for it. On his way back home, a beggar accosted him to give him what he held. The Jew told him, “Since it is the Allah’s gift, he could share half of the money and gave it to him.”
The beggar returned it to him and revealed that he was the messenger of God and had come to test him. And the Jew lived happily ever after with his family.
