WHAT WILL YOU REAP FROM THE SEEDS YOU SOW?

WHAT WILL YOU REAP FROM THE SEEDS YOU SOW?

In recent years, some self-styled religious teachers on social media have been talking about what is supposedly found in Paradise. They speak of palaces with seventy thousand rooms, each room filled with young and beautiful concubines; rivers flowing with wine; and tables laden with all kinds of food that supposedly last for seventy years. Don’t believe them. Let me tell you what is actually in Paradise—I’ve been there and come back, after all.

Most people look at life as if it were a ledger. “What’s in it for me?” “What will I gain from this?” “What will I get in return?”

But life is not made up only of what we receive. There is also what we give. More precisely, there is what we sow, often without even realizing it.

A person does not accumulate only money and possessions. We also accumulate our actions: the kindness we show someone, the heart we break, the generosity we display, the help we withhold, the injustice we commit... Somehow, all of these become part of our lives.

My late father would sometimes quote an old saying:

“Ad-dunyā mazraʿat al-ākhirah.”

In other words, “This world is the field of the Hereafter.”

Those who quote this saying often follow it with a Sufi tale:

One day, a greedy and miserly man was sitting in a coffeehouse when a madman approached him and began pestering him:

— Give me two coins. I want some yogurt.

The man tried to drive him away, but he could not get rid of him.

The madman then insisted:

— Buy me some yogurt.

The people in the coffeehouse intervened:

— Come on, let us buy you some yogurt.

But the madman refused their offer. He kept following the miser:

— Either give me two coins or buy me some yogurt!

Finally, the man reluctantly pulled two coins from his pocket and threw them on the ground.

— May God punish you. Here!

The madman picked up the money, went to the shop across the street, bought some yogurt, and returned to sit directly in front of the miser. Then he calmly ate the yogurt right there in front of him.

The man stormed out of the coffeehouse and went home.

That night, he had a strange dream.

He found himself in Paradise. Everything was green. Trees, grass, rivers, flowers... It was a beautiful place, almost impossible to describe.

But there was nothing to eat.

He was terribly hungry. He was so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand.

Then a man appeared.

— Hey, where is this place?

— Paradise.

The man was puzzled.

— What kind of Paradise is this? Where are the kebabs? Where is the wine? Where are the houris? I don’t see any of them!

The man standing before him looked around.

— Let me see... There is some yogurt over there.

He brought him some yogurt.

As the man ate it, he could not resist asking:

— Could you give me some bread too?

The answer was brief:

— Brother, you sent this yogurt yesterday. If you had sent some bread as well, you would find it here in front of you now.

Then he added:

“Ad-dunyā mazraʿat al-ākhirah.”

In other words:

“This world is the field of the Hereafter.”

I think the most striking part of the story is right here.

We often dismiss the little things we do. “What difference does it make?” we say, and move on. Yet the great consequences of life sometimes grow out of the accumulation of precisely these small actions.

Refusing to help someone is a choice.

So is discouraging a student.

So is ignoring an employee’s hard work.

So is remaining silent in the face of injustice.

So is failing to stand beside a friend in difficult times.

So is refusing to listen to an elderly person.

None of these things simply disappear from our lives.

And the seeds we sow are not always about money or material possessions. Sometimes a smile is a seed. Sometimes taking a few minutes to listen to someone is a seed. Sometimes refusing to take something that does not belong to us is a seed of goodness.

The same is true of evil.

When we belittle another person, we are also shaping our own character. When we take what belongs to someone else, we do not merely harm that person; we also dull our own conscience a little more.

We may not notice it immediately.

That, in fact, is one of our greatest illusions:

If the consequence of an action does not appear immediately, we assume that it has no consequence.

But some seeds take time to sprout.

In the field of someone who sows kindness, trust grows.

In the field of someone who sows honesty, respect takes root.

In the field of someone who sows compassion, humanity flourishes.

And in the field of someone who sows selfishness, injustice, and greed, other things grow.

Perhaps we do not see the results immediately. But life has a long memory.

That is why it is worth asking ourselves from time to time:

“What am I sowing in my own field today?”

Because one day, at a time we least expect, what we have sown may appear before us.

And when that day comes, what will matter is not how much money we have in our hands, but what kind of seeds we planted.

Perhaps a person’s true wealth is not measured by how much they accumulated at the end of their life, but by how much goodness they left behind.

Because if this world really is a field, then the most important question before us is:

“When harvest time comes, what do I want to reap?”