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“We get what we deserve.”

A holy man lived in a certain city. He was renowned for his piety. He said his prayers without fail according to the Mahomedan custom five times a day and was assiduous in his attendance at the services in the mosque. He was very rich and subscribed to all the local charities. In fact we may say that he fulfilled all his religious duties to the letter.

“To the letter,” yes, but “to the spirit” no.

In business he was grasping, and not very honest. He was a hard master and cruel in his treatment of subordinates. He extracted the last farthing from his debtors, and had those who could not pay cast into prison.

But his religious duties he never neglected, and he had every reason to believe that the Almighty must be very pleased with him. He felt that when his time came to die, he could pass over with full confidence in the certain hope of a reward for his services to God while in this world.

Now there was, in the same city, a humble fakir. The word ‘fakir’ means ‘poor’, and this fellow was poor indeed. He lived entirely on alms bestowed by the charitable, and the charitable were not very generous.

It is meritorious to give alms to beggars, but the word ‘alms’ covers the whole range of the coinage, and citizens who lost no opportunity of bestowing alms (especially when others were looking) generally confined their gifts to the smallest coin of the realm, fifty of which would barely suffice to pay for a simple meal of bread and sweetmeats.

So the fakir did not make a fat thing out of it.

On most days he had barely enough to pay for his simple food, but now and then some kindly fellow would hand him a really respectable sum which would have lasted him for several days if carefully hoarded.

But instead of hoarding it, he went round the town, and found people even poorer than himself, and shared it with them. And by night time it was all gone and he started the next day as poor as ever.

He generally said his prayers in the usual way five times a day, but for one reason or another he sometimes skipped one of the appointed times. And he didn’t go very often to the mosque, and he never went out of his way to flatter the mullah. But he worshipped God in his heart and lost no occasion of helping his neighbours, and doing what he could to cheer up the downhearted.

In the course of the day he wandered through all the bazars, but his regular place of business was just outside the door of the holy rich man’s palace. And when the rich man came out, he used to give a friendly nod to the fakir, and bestow on him a sum equivalent to about half a farthing.

Now the time came when the holy man was seized with a fatal illness, and as he lay on his death-bed he bade farewell to his mourning relatives with complete composure. He had no qualms about the future world; he would go, beyond doubt, to Paradise.

And he was not mistaken. No sooner had the breath left his body than he felt himself borne aloft on wings and in a short time found himself in the abode of the blessed.

Arrived inside the gates he was told to wait until an angel could be sent to guide him to his place of residence.

While awaiting the arrival of his guide he had leisure to survey the scene before him. The landscape was extraordinarily beautiful, and under groves of nodding palms, by streams of crystal water, he could see the various types of residences prepared for the faithful.

One particular building attracted his attention. It was built of blocks of crystal, inset with amethyst and various precious stones, and the doors and paving stones were of pure gold. It was evidently unoccupied and the holy man wondered if it were to be his. “Quite likely,” he murmured to himself, “I don’t see many other residences here which the Almighty would be likely to bestow on me. I am pretty certain that this is the beautiful palace prepared for my reception.”

He cast his eye over the remaining buildings, of which several thousand were in view, but none were so beautiful as the one he had set his heart on, many were quite ordinary houses, and some were little better than mud hovels built of sun-dried bricks and plastered with mud—dreadful little places to find in Paradise.

Presently the angel arrived and offered to conduct him to his dwelling.

To his delight they headed straight for the beautiful palace of crystal. “I was quite right in my conjecture,” he thought to himself. “How happy I shall be in that princely abode.”

But just as they reached the entrance to the palace the angel turned aside and led him past several other inferior but still ‘desirable’ residences, towards the group of mud huts he had just been contemplating with disgust.

Arrived before the meanest of these the angel stopped and pointed.

“What do you mean?” asked the holy man.

“Your allotted residence,” was the brief reply.

With bitter rage and mortification in his heart the holy man was about to say something to the angel that would have entailed his casting out from the abode of the blessed, but he luckily checked himself in time and contented himself with asking:

“What is the meaning of this? Am I who have always lived in luxury in the world below to be rewarded for my numerous acts of piety with such a miserable dwelling in Paradise?”

“Yes,” replied the angel, “that is so. Outward acts of religion and piety secure the bare entrance into Paradise and form the foundations of all these buildings which you see. The foundations of this little mud hut of yours are all that could be desired. The superstructure is provided by good acts inspired by a love of God, outside the sphere of religious formalities.”

“Then may I ask,” indignantly inquired the holy man, “for whom that beautiful palace of crystal and gold is destined?”

The angel answered: “That is for the fakir who stood daily at your door.”

“Still I cannot understand,” wailed the holy man, “why so noble a residence for him and so mean a one for me. You might have been kinder to me I think, considering that the Almighty knows the sort of life I have been accustomed to.”

“It is not for us to choose,” was the soft answer. “I am truly sorry for you. But our builders are only allowed to use the materials you send us from below during your earthly lives. These are the materials you yourself have provided for us—we always hoped you would begin to understand, and send us something better, but you never did—and those are the materials the poor old fakir sent us.”