Title: Untitled Story
Artist: Participant A (Boy, Age 12)
Year: 2025
Transcribed story
Title: Untitled Story
One day, 3 men were on their way to work when they each came across a poor cat with a missing leg and a wound in its side. The poor animal was lying on the floor in desperation and agony, hoping somebody would help it.
The 1st man encountered the cat, but didn't do anything as it wailed in pain. He carried on the rest of his day as normal and almost instantly forgot about his encounter with the cat.
The 2nd man came and found the cat lying on the floor. He decided to help it by taking it out of the area, which was almost isolated and put it in a busy street for someone else to find and help it. He then left and carried on with his day however he did in fact feel a slight sense of guilt throughout his day.
The 3rd man came across the cat and decided to pick it up and take it to the vets without thinking twice. After a while he also called the animal services and told them he had found a lost cat. Fortunately, the animal service found out who the cat’s owners were and immediately informed them.
The owners were that grateful for the man finding the cat that they rewarded him with £300. Out of gratitude, the man donated £100 to the animal shelter and kept the rest.
Now perhaps if the 1st man had helped the cat, things would have gone differently. He would have £300 and perhaps if he earned the money it would have helped him a great deal as the first man was really poor and could only afford 1 meal a day. But the poor man didn't get that money, so he ended up going to sleep hungry that night, not knowing what he missed out on.
Or perhaps the 2nd man could have made the money if he didn't hesitate before helping the cat, only to a certain extent. Perhaps if the man helped the cat to his maximum capacity, he would have made £300 to put into the business he wanted to start, but did not have the funds to achieve his goal.
The man who was, in fact, most comfortable with the money and had never gone a day without food, earned the money all because, he did the most he could to save the cat from its terrible conditions.
The moral of the story being that if one is capable of doing an act of kindness, his maximum capacity, he shall then be rewarded. But this reward may not always be in money. It could also be in the afterlife.
For example, the second man still felt a guilty conscience despite already helping the cat, because he knew he had not actually taken the cat to safety, because of this, Allah may have rewarded him with good deeds, as not all rewards have to be a materialistic asset.
If one is able to help himself, he should also be able to help others.
Curatorial Note:
This piece was created by Participant E, a 13-year-old girl based in the UK, during an individual Story Design Workshop conducted as part of the Sufi Storytelling Project at the University of Edinburgh.
The young storyteller described what she wished to narrate:
Researcher: “How about the imaginal? Do you think there are connections there?”
Participant E: “I think I did it so like it would actually be like a realistic situation and it's not something like completely imaginary like something that would definitely not happen.”
Themes:
Environment, Islam, Kindness, Reward, Good Deeds
Citation:
Participant E. (2025) Untitled Story. In: Digital Museum of Sufi Stories and Art by Children and Families (curated by H.E. Üzümcü). University of Edinburgh. DataShare Repository. https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/8176
Copyright & Licence Statement:
© 2025 Participant E. This work is published in anonymised form with the consent of the participant and her caregiver as part of the Digital Museum of Sufi Stories and Art by Children and Families, University of Edinburgh. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. You may share and adapt this work for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given.
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