Yusuf and the Talking Date Tree

Yusuf was seven years old, and he was absolutely, positively certain that the big date palm in his grandmother's courtyard was magic. The tree was older than his grandmother, older than his grandmother's grandmother, and so tall that when Yusuf looked up at it, his little hat fell right off his head — every single time.

One afternoon, while everyone else was napping in the soft, sleepy heat, Yusuf sat under the tree and whispered, 'Salaam, tree.' He didn't know why. He just felt like it. And to his enormous surprise, the leaves rustled back: 'Wa alaikum salaam, little one.'

Yusuf jumped so high he almost climbed the tree by accident. 'You can talk?' he squeaked. 'Of course,' said the tree, in a voice that sounded like wind through paper. 'Every tree praises Allah. Most people are simply too busy to listen.' The Quran says it, the tree added kindly, in Surah Al-Isra.

The tree told Yusuf about the camels it had seen, the travelers who had rested in its shade, the birds who had taught their babies to fly from its branches. It told him about a boy, long ago, who had planted a tiny seed and watered it every single morning, even when his friends laughed. 'That boy,' said the tree, 'was your great-great-grandfather. And that seed was me.'

Yusuf's eyes went very wide. 'So you're family?' 'In a way,' said the tree. 'Every good thing someone plants keeps giving long after they are gone. That is called sadaqah jariyah.' Yusuf didn't know that word yet. But he decided, right there in the courtyard, that he was going to plant something too.

The next morning, before anyone was awake, Yusuf took a small date pit, dug a small hole near the wall, and whispered a small dua. He watered it carefully. And every single morning after that — even when his friends laughed, even when it rained, even when he was sleepy — he watered his little seed. And somewhere, the old date palm rustled its leaves and smiled.