The Cat Who Taught Yahya About Mercy

It was raining. Not normal rain — RAIN rain, the kind that makes the streets into rivers and the sky into one big gray blanket. Yahya was inside, warm, eating biscuits, watching the storm out the window. That's when he heard it. A tiny, tiny mew.

He pressed his face to the glass. Down by the gate, curled into the smallest possible ball, was a kitten. Soaked. Shivering. Eyes squeezed shut. Yahya's heart did a funny squeeze. 'Mama!' he yelled. 'There's a cat!'

His mama looked. She sighed. 'We can't keep it, beta. But — go get a towel.' Yahya ran. He ran SO fast he nearly fell over twice. He scooped up the kitten in the biggest towel they owned. The kitten was so small it fit in one of his hands.

His mama warmed a tiny saucer of milk. Yahya sat on the kitchen floor and watched the kitten lap it up, one tiny pink-tongue lick at a time. 'Did you know,' said his mama softly, 'that the Prophet ﷺ loved cats? There was a companion named Abu Hurayrah — that name literally means father of the kitten. He carried his cat everywhere.'

'And one time,' she went on, 'the Prophet ﷺ told a story about a woman who was punished because she locked up a cat and didn't feed it, until it died. And another story about a woman whose sins were forgiven because she gave water to a thirsty dog.' Yahya looked down at the warm kitten in his lap. 'So being kind to animals is… big?' His mama nodded. 'It's huge. Allah notices everything.'

They couldn't keep the kitten, but their neighbor could. Yahya carried him over in the towel like he was carrying a king. He visited every day after school. The kitten — whom he named Mishmish, which means apricot, because of his color — would purr the moment he heard Yahya's voice. And every time, Yahya remembered: kindness to even the tiniest creature is seen by the One who made it.