Sheikh Fareed Uddin Atta'ar (perfume seller) was a very successful businessman of Greek medicines and perfumes. In his early days he had a big shop of medicines and perfumes and was a worldly man at that time. One day he was sitting at his shop which was full of bottles of medicines and perfumes. A dishevelled man entered his shop and started staring at all the different medicine and perfume bottles. Sometimes he would look up, sometimes down, sometimes right, sometimes left, but he just kept staring at the bottles in shelves and didn't say a word. After a long time had passed Sheikh Fareed Uddin asked him, "What are you looking at? What are you trying to find?" He replied, "I am just looking at these bottles." Sheikh Fareed Uddin asked, "Do you want to buy something?" He said, "No. I don't want to buy anything. I am just looking at these bottles." He then just kept looking at different bottles. After a while Sheikh Fareed Uddin asked again, "Brother what are you looking at?" The man replied, "Actually I am wondering that when you are dying how would your spirit escape from this place. You have got so many bottles here. When you are dying your spirit would go into one bottle, then it would go into another bottle, how would it be set free from here?"

Sheikh Fareed Uddin was a worldly businessman at that time. Upon hearing this he got angry and said, "Why are you worried about how my spirit would be set free? My spirit would be set free the same way your spirit you spirit would be set free." The man said, "I am not worried about my spirit leaving here. I have no business, no shop, no bottles. My spirit would be set free just like this." The man went out, lied down on the ground, recited the kalimah ""اشھد ان لا الہ الا الّٰلہ و اشھد ان محمّدً ا رسول الّٰلہ" and passed away.

Sheikh Fareed Uddin was really struck by this scene that he was so preoccupied by his business that he had never thought about going to Allah Ta'alah and here was this man who had gone to his Creator so easily and peacefully. The same day he handed over his business to others and left home in the way of Allah and eventually became one of the most famous saints of his time.

Moulana Taqi Usmani further said that for people like us the moral of this story is not that we all give up what we are doing and leave home in the way of Allah. The true lesson of the story is that if a person's heart and mind are completely preoccupied with material comforts and worldly affairs, and everything he does in life is to make more money for the sake of making money, then there will be no place for Allah SWT in that heart.  On the other hand if a person has Allah's love in his heart then even though he does have material possessions his heart is not exclusively preoccupied with them.

Adapted from the talk "Do not fall in love with the material world" by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani DB