This is a true story and I witnessed the events myself. I narrate it hoping that it may contain some lessons for whoever wants something that draws him near to Allah The Almighty.

Like other young men in secondary school, I was under the pressures of studies and getting good grades, so, I decided, with some of my good and righteous friends, to go to a beach where one of my friends owns a cabana. We were all looking forward to having a good time by entertaining ourselves within the limits of obeying Allah The Almighty.

To our horror, when we were on our way to this place, the luggage of one of my friends fell from the bus. He left the bus immediately to search for it accompanied by one of our companions. As we had separated, the rest of our friends and I decided not to complete the journey; however, soon our friend found his lost bag and joined us on the road. Consequently, we decided to continue our journey. It seemed as if Allah The Almighty wanted us to continue on this journey to be eyewitnesses to the incidents that would happen.

After arriving at the cabana, we cleaned up and set things in order. A few hours later, we decided to perform some Rak‘ahs (units of prayer) before Fajr (Dawn) prayer in the cabana’s garden which overlooked the other cabanas. Before we could start, though, a group of youth reached the cabana that faced ours and bombarded us with torrents of very loud music. At once, we went to their cabana hoping to advise them gently and good-humoredly, as well as to invite them to join us, hoping that Allah The Almighty would guide them at our hands.

However, they rejected our advice and it seemed as if they had come there for the sole purpose of committing any sins they wanted and to satisfy all their evil desires. This seemed especially true, seeing that they had come from another state and did not want to run into anyone who would restrain their desires or end the flood of confusion and heedlessness in which they were drowning themselves. So, we returned to our cabana and left them.

However, we noticed that one of them had some vestiges of goodness, for after a few moments, this young man who was called Ahmad, along with another young man from that group, came to us. They asked us to knock at their door at the time of each prayer. We welcomed this request and were very happy that Allah The Almighty had granted us success to call them to His straight Path. Indeed, when the Athaan (call) of Fajr Prayer started we knocked on their door and they joined us in prayer.

When we performed prayer, we spoke with them and tried to extract some light of guidance from their hearts, however it was very faint and buried under long years of deprivation and disobedience. Ahmad, that young man, surprised us when he started relaying his story with tears of sadness and bitterness filling his eyes.

He said,


"I was a good and tenderhearted young man. Allah The Almighty blessed me and I grew up during the first years of my youth among righteous young men who truly loved Allah The Almighty, and who had sound hearts and souls that were humbly submissive to Allah The Almighty. They loved me and I loved them. I lived with them, performing prayer, reading the Book of Allah and attending religious lectures in different mosques.

It was a beautiful life; I was close to Allah The Almighty and I loved Him greatly to the extent that, by Allah, I felt that love for Allah The Almighty flowed through my bones until it reached my brain.

It was an indescribable feeling, but whoever has tasted the sweetness of obedience would realize what I am saying.

I interrupted him as his words affected me deeply, yet I was also perplexed because of his current state, which was very different from what he was saying. What was the cause behind this radical change? I posed the question to him, but he surprised us by saying: Do you know that I have not prostrated even once to Allah for four years?

Four years of deprivation and disobedience! What had happened? What filled his heart with hatred and cast it into the pits of misery and deprivation? What prevented it from the life of illumination and closeness to Allah The Merciful, The Forgiving?

The answer was as I expected: it is the disaster and obstacle that stealthily destroys many young men after having tasted the sweetness of Faith and ascending its ranks. Therefore, its strikes are lethal and cause many young people to fall down screaming until they hit rock bottom.

He said,


"It was bad company that brought me to this state. Ever since I came to know them, they took me with them everywhere until I left my good companions and prayer, and committed sins that I had never imagined that I would dare commit."

Dear brothers, do you see ‎what the supporters of the devil can do? They are truly devils in human form who do not observe any pact of kinship or covenant of protection with a believer. They just want you to be like them; a wanderer on the roads of misery in this worldly life and a companion in all the evils they commit. However, on the Day of Judgment, they will deny and curse one another. You will see them standing before Allah The Almighty screaming at the face of one another, “If it were not for you, we would have been believers!”

The two young men stopped reminiscing with these memories and we promised them to knock at their door at the time of every prayer. However, we were not able to do that.

We decided go to the beach before sunrise to enjoy swimming before the beach became crowded and full of sights that can affect one's faith negatively.

However, this group of young men preceded us to the beach and when we reached there we found something completely unexpected. One of the young men met us, screaming, “He is drowning!”

We inquired, “Who?” He said, “Ahmad, who joined you in the Fajr Prayer!”

We hurried to the beach with our hearts beating fast. When we reached the beach, we found people gathered without any trace of Ahmad! One of those who had seen him drowning said that he kept fighting the waves amidst a whirlpool. When his friends saw this, they fled to the shore leaving him to die. When the man who had witnessed the mishap said this, the gathered people looked scornfully at his friends.

My friends and I kept searching for a lifeguard or boat that might carry us to the open sea to search for Ahmad. One of my friends called a number written by the lifeguard teams on a signboard near us. When they told him that they would take some time to reach our location, he started shouting at them, weeping helplessly, and hung up the phone.

All the people at the scene, including us, were very angry at the coldness that Ahmad’s friends showed at that time.

None of them even took the trouble to search for any means to save him; they only cared about saving themselves and remaining unharmed. The young man who was their companion, whose life they misled and destroyed, was left to his fate as if they did not know him at all!

Twenty minutes later, one of the people said that he could see something floating on the water. We all looked at his friends, expecting that they would immediately go and see if this was their friend so that they might save him. Nonetheless, they did not move a muscle.

So, I, accompanied by two of my friends and another young man among those who were present on the beach, entered the water which was very deep, but Allah The Almighty saved us. We got hold of him and he was as stiff as a piece of wood. I was very frightened because this was the first time I carried someone who was in such a condition.

We took him out and checked his breath and pulse but he was dead. Allah The Almighty Says (what means): {Wherever you may be, death will overtake you, even if you should be within towers of lofty construction.} [Quran 4:78]

Now his soul is lonely and it receives the retribution of its acts just as his body, which remained lonely after his cowardly friends escaped, leaving him to his destiny. They disappeared after each one of them had packed his bags, leaving the corpse of their “friend” alone! It was unclear where it will go! Will it go to his house so that his mother sees him for the last time or will sadness kill her because she did not even have the chance to bid farewell to her son?

All this happened because Ahmad made a great mistake when he decided to take these scoundrels as friends. They know nothing but playing, frolicking, committing sins and satisfying their evil desires. If you can do this, then you are their friend and close companion and they will be around you all the time. However, in times of difficulty and disasters, you will not find any of them by your side to support you. In fact, you may even find one of them pushing you in his stead to save himself. Hence, you will find yourself face to face with your own destiny alone. Then, you will remember the Aayah (Quranic Verse) in which Allah The Almighty Says (what means): {And the Day the wrongdoer will bite on his hands [in regret] he will say, "Oh, I wish I had taken with the Messenger a way. * Oh, woe to me! I wish I had not taken that one as a friend. * He led me away from the remembrance after it had come to me. And ever is Satan, to man, a deserter."} [Quran 25:27-29]

Ahmad’s body remained covered with newspapers until the police came, accompanied by an ambulance that took him to the morgue.

This is the story of a drowned young man and it is our turn to learn lessons from it and to start our journey back to Allah The Almighty.

Ahmad has passed away, but you still have a chance to join the flock of the repentant. I would like to conclude by sending a message to every young man whom Allah The Almighty has provided with righteous companions who help him adhere to the obedience of Allah The Almighty, and a message to everyone who is deceived by evil friends who beautified sins and evil desires in his eyes.

Dear young man, I truly love you for the sake of Allah The Almighty and I entreat Allah The Almighty to make our last moments good. I call you before the advent of death and its agonies, that sadden the young and the old, as well as the rich and the poor…

Dear brother, always keep good company and search for companions in blessed places like the circles for learning the Quran and other assemblies of knowledge.

Accompany them to enjoy the warmth of living according to the Divine Law. Such righteous friends are a source of pride in times of ease, and a helping hand during times of hardship.


Do not ever leave them to accompany bad friends, because they are the source of all evils. Allah The Exalted Says (what means): {Close friends, that Day, will be enemies to each other, except for the righteous} [Quran 43:67]