The wind was strong that morning, carrying the salt of the sea through our village. I was just a boy then, the youngest of my father’s six sons. You won’t find my name in any surah, but I still remember the day our elders warned us—again—not to fish on the Sabbath.
“We are a people chosen to obey,” my father once told me. “Allah has given us the Sabbath—Saturday—as a day of rest and worship. It is a gift, not a burden.”
But as the years passed, my people grew restless. We lived in a town by the sea, and fish swam near the shore in huge numbers every Saturday—but were almost gone the rest of the week. It became a test, and many failed.
At first, the fishermen only complained. Then they schemed. Some dug traps on Friday and left them covered, returning on Sunday to collect the fish that had fallen in, pretending they hadn’t “fished” on the Sabbath. Others built channels from the sea into pools inland, secretly directing the fish in on Saturday. They thought they were clever—that Allah would not see or care.
I remember the fear in my heart when I first saw it. I had followed my older cousin, who often joined the fishermen. That day, I saw him lift a gate to a pool where dozens of fish swam helplessly. “No fishing on the Sabbath,” he said with a smirk. “But no rule against collecting fish afterward.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. I knew it was wrong. Allah—who sees all, who hears every whisper of the heart—knew it too.
In our village, there were three groups. The first were those who broke Allah’s command. The second were those who did nothing but watched, afraid to speak up. And the third were those who warned the sinners again and again: “Fear Allah! What you are doing is wrong!” My father was among the warners.
But some mocked him. “Why do you bother? They will never listen.”
He answered them quietly, “We do it to obey Allah, to remind them of His words—and perhaps they might return.”
Then, the punishment came.
One morning, I woke to wails echoing through the hills. People fled from one end of the village, crying, pointing. I ran with them and stopped cold. Where the Sabbath-breakers had lived, nothing human remained. Only beasts—in form of apes—scrambled about, wild and hopeless. Their eyes were hollow. It was as if their hearts had been taken away.
That was the day I truly feared Allah—not just in my mind, but in my chest, my bones. Disobedience is not a joke. When people think they’re smarter than the laws of the One who created them, they only hurt themselves.
I never fished on a Saturday again. And whenever I feel tempted to twist what Allah has made clear, I remember those sad eyes looking back from a cursed form—and I choose His path.
Story Note: Inspired by Surah Al-A‘raf (7:163–166) and the traditional commentaries found in classical tafsir, including that of Ibn Kathir.
The wind was strong that morning, carrying the salt of the sea through our village. I was just a boy then, the youngest of my father’s six sons. You won’t find my name in any surah, but I still remember the day our elders warned us—again—not to fish on the Sabbath.
“We are a people chosen to obey,” my father once told me. “Allah has given us the Sabbath—Saturday—as a day of rest and worship. It is a gift, not a burden.”
But as the years passed, my people grew restless. We lived in a town by the sea, and fish swam near the shore in huge numbers every Saturday—but were almost gone the rest of the week. It became a test, and many failed.
At first, the fishermen only complained. Then they schemed. Some dug traps on Friday and left them covered, returning on Sunday to collect the fish that had fallen in, pretending they hadn’t “fished” on the Sabbath. Others built channels from the sea into pools inland, secretly directing the fish in on Saturday. They thought they were clever—that Allah would not see or care.
I remember the fear in my heart when I first saw it. I had followed my older cousin, who often joined the fishermen. That day, I saw him lift a gate to a pool where dozens of fish swam helplessly. “No fishing on the Sabbath,” he said with a smirk. “But no rule against collecting fish afterward.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. I knew it was wrong. Allah—who sees all, who hears every whisper of the heart—knew it too.
In our village, there were three groups. The first were those who broke Allah’s command. The second were those who did nothing but watched, afraid to speak up. And the third were those who warned the sinners again and again: “Fear Allah! What you are doing is wrong!” My father was among the warners.
But some mocked him. “Why do you bother? They will never listen.”
He answered them quietly, “We do it to obey Allah, to remind them of His words—and perhaps they might return.”
Then, the punishment came.
One morning, I woke to wails echoing through the hills. People fled from one end of the village, crying, pointing. I ran with them and stopped cold. Where the Sabbath-breakers had lived, nothing human remained. Only beasts—in form of apes—scrambled about, wild and hopeless. Their eyes were hollow. It was as if their hearts had been taken away.
That was the day I truly feared Allah—not just in my mind, but in my chest, my bones. Disobedience is not a joke. When people think they’re smarter than the laws of the One who created them, they only hurt themselves.
I never fished on a Saturday again. And whenever I feel tempted to twist what Allah has made clear, I remember those sad eyes looking back from a cursed form—and I choose His path.
Story Note: Inspired by Surah Al-A‘raf (7:163–166) and the traditional commentaries found in classical tafsir, including that of Ibn Kathir.
