Story illustrating the Wisdom of Feigning Deafness

Many writers affirm the falsity of the idea that Hātim was deaf.

One morning his attention was attracted by the buzzing of a fly, which had become ensnared in a spider’s web. “O thou,” he observed, “who art fettered by thine own avarice, be patient. Wherever there be a tempting bait, huntsman and snare are close at hand.”

One of his disciples remarked: “Strange it is that thou couldst hear the buzzing of a fly that hardly reached our ears. No longer can they call thee deaf.”

The Sheikh replied: “Deafness is better than the hearing of idle words. Those that sit with me in private are prone to conceal my faults and parade my virtues; thus, do they make me vain. I feign deafness that I may be spared their flattery. When my assumed affliction has become known to them they will speak freely of that which is good and bad in me; then, being grieved at the recital of my faults, I shall abstain from evil.”

Go not down a well by a rope of praise. Be deaf, like Hātim, and listen to the words of them that slander thee.