Virtues of Dhikr: Excellence of “La ilaha illallah” by Shaykh al-Hadith Mawlana Zakariyya Kandhlawi

Shaykh Abu Yazid Qurtabi heard from someone that whoever recited it (the Kalimah: La-ilaha ill-Allah) seventy thousand times he or she would be immune from the fire of Hell. He completed a course accordingly for his wife and many other courses for himself. There lived a youth nearby who, it was said was ‘a man of Kashf’ and had the foreknowledge of the events of Paradise and Hell. One day it so happened that while sharing a meal with him he suddenly made a loud cry and began to gasp, and exclaimed that his mother had been cast into Hell. Shaykh Qurtabi keenly observed the condition of the youth and decided to offer a course for his mother secretly so that the fact that the youth possessed a foreknowledge of the Unseen and the truth of his mother’s sad plight in Hell would be ascertained. The Shaykh said that he did it so secretly that nobody could knew it, except the Almighty, Allah. But the youth soon expressed his gratitude and said that now his mother had got rid of the Fire of Hell (through the excellence of the recital of the Kalima). [Fazail-e-Amal, (Eng. Trans.), Virtues of Dhikr , Chapter.3 (Part – 3), p.59 (Edt. 1985, Published by Dini Book Depot – Delhi).