One day, a group of vultures was eating carrion in a valley. The meat was rotten and had a bad stench, but they were enjoying themselves. While they were eating the King’s eagle flew over. He saw them and landed.
‘Why are you eating this rotten meat?’ He asked the vultures. ‘Come with me to the King’s palace and you will enjoy delicacies beyond your wildest imagination. Everything freshly prepared, with exotic aromas.’ The vultures told the eagle, ’Go away with your daydreams. We are quite content, enjoying ourselves eating this meat.’
This is a parable of people who are engaged in sin. They are like the vultures, eating on the rotten meat of sin while thinking that they are enjoying themselves. In actual fact, these sins have an evil stench. The pious people tell these sinners to leave the sin and come to the Palace of Allah and live in His obedience. In return they will enjoy pleasure far beyond that of the sin that seems enjoyable, yet is in reality a source of gloom, depression and anxiety.
The Qur’aan tells us that the devil makes sin seem enjoyable; whereas true contentment only comes with the obedience of Allah. We will only realise this when we try out a sin-free life and compare it with the life of sins: of drugs, music, adultery and fraud.
The Eagle and the Vultures
