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I want to begin with a story of one of my teachers that influenced me greatly.

Allah blessed me to study in Arabia for many years and one of the people who

probably had the most impact on me at a spiritual level is a very famous

scholar by the name of Sheikh Avin Arthamin. He used to live in a small village

ornaiza and I studied with him for one summer before he passed away and I heard a lot of stories

about him from his students and of course I saw him one on one as well. One of the stories that his

students told me it happened before I came that summer was in the 80s the King of Saudi Arabia

visited the city of Ornaiza and the Sheikh was so famous that one of the very few people

the king would visit in his house rather than the other way around. Generally speaking,

the Sheikh goes to the King in that country but Sheikh Avin Arthamin was so senior and so respected

that the King visited Sheikh Avin Arthamin and at that time he used to live in a mud hut. This is

back in the 80s the hut that would be constructed in those days. So the King said let me build you

a new house and our Sheikh Avin Arthamin had a very strict policy no gifts from the King and I have

a lot of stories about that as well he never accepted a penny from the royal dynasty. So he said I

don't need a house the King insisted. So he said well if you must know Hamdulillah I am building a

house in Salehia he mentioned a neighborhood there. So the King then moved on the conversation and

then left. His students said after the King left Sheikh we didn't know you're building a house

in that neighborhood that's way outside the city why would you do that? The Sheikh said isn't the

graveyard in Salehia they said yes he said I'm building a house for the Ahira. Subhanallah

when I heard that story what struck me was the philosophy or the paradigm of our Sheikh that

for a person to say that instantaneously when the King is there this isn't something that just comes

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