An-Nu‘mān ibn Bashīr (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: ‘Abdullāh ibn Rawāhah (may Allah be pleased with him) fell down unconscious, so his sister started crying. She said: "O my mountain! O so-and-so!" and went on calling him by his good qualities one by one. When he came to his senses, he said: "Whenever you said something, I was asked: 'Are you really so?'"

Explanation

An-Nu‘mān ibn Bashīr (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that ‘Abdullāh ibn Rawāhah (may Allah be pleased with him) fell down unconscious because he was too sick. When his sister, (may Allah be pleased with her) saw him in that state, she thought that he had died. Therefore, she started crying and said: "O my mountain!" By this she meant that for her he was like a mountain in which she sought refuge from adversities. She counted his good qualities the way people used to do in the pre-Islamic era. When he came to his senses, he told her what had happened to him. It was said to him, "Are you a mountain that people seek refuge in? Are you the same as they describe you?" Everything that his sister mentioned during his fit, he was questioned about it out of sarcasm and severe threat. In another narration, it was mentioned that when Ibn Rawāhah died, his sister had learnt the lesson and, therefore, did not mourn him that way.

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