Great Teachers Learn From Their Little Students

Great Teachers Learn From Their Little Students

An Urdu  teacher was teaching poetry to his students and he was explaining the couplet given below: 

پاؤں  جنّت میں نہ رکھا تھا کہ تن سے نکلی روح 

بے کسی نے رو دیا دیکھ کر منہ شداد کا 

The Urdu teacher was explaining his students that once  a man named Shadad attempted  to enter the Paradise without the permission of God but the angel of Death killed him outside the door of the Paradise. A  small student  whose parents were well-read and well-educated  stood up and asked the Urdu teacher to allow him to tell the class the complete story of the king Shadad. The Urdu  teacher granted him the permission.  

The little student narrated that there was a cruel king called Shaddad. He was the son of Aad and he  was fully drunk on his worldly  power and pelf. He refused to accept the Prophet Hud's  call to Islamic faith. Instead, he claimed that he himself was God and that there was no god other than him. He told the Prophet Hud [MBUH] that he would build the better heaven than the Heaven of Allah. Accordingly,   he got a wonderful heaven built to counter the promised Heaven as preached by the prophet Hud [MBUH] . When his heaven was ready, he set out to inspect it  but his soul was snatched by the angel of Death on the way and he could not reach his  heaven. The cruel Shadad had lived 900 years in the world.  The story of his false pride is referred to in the holy  Quran , chapter 89  as an admonition to non-believers. Then the little student recited the following verse: 

ارم ذات العماد  ۔۔۔ التی کم یخلق مثلھا فی البلاد 

The Urdu teacher realised his blunder. He accepted in his heart of hearts  that a teacher must not pass on false information to his students and he accepted before the whole class that he   learnt something beautiful from his little student that day. 

Moral : Pride leads to destruction and humility leads to success.