The Leper, the Bald Man and the Blind Man: A Story of Gratitude and Ingratitude

Some of the Prophet’s ﷺ stories work like mirrors: short to hear, impossible to forget, and quietly aimed at the person listening. Abu Huraira narrated one of them — a story about three men of Banu Isra’il who were each given exactly what they asked Allah for, and then, years later, were asked for something in return. Two of them rewrote their own past. One of them told the truth and opened his hand. The story is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, and it ends with a verdict that turns the whole narration into a lesson about gratitude: who confesses a blessing keeps it, and who denies it loses it.

1. Allah Willed to Test Three Men

The narration opens by telling us plainly what kind of story this is. It is not about three cures that happened by chance; from the first line, everything that follows is a test, designed as a test:

“Allah willed to test three Israelis who were a Leper, a blind man and a bald-headed man. So, he sent them an angel who came to the leper and said, ‘What thing do you like most?'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

A leper, a blind man and a bald-headed man — three men whose conditions were visible to everyone around them. The leper and the bald man were shunned for how they looked; the blind man could not even see the people who passed him. Allah sent them an angel, and the angel began with a question that goes straight to the heart of each man’s pain: what thing do you like most? Each man answered honestly. Each man received what he asked for. Nothing in the first half of the story is withheld — and that is precisely what makes the second half so exposing.

2. The Leper: “Good Color and Good Skin”

The angel came first to the leper. His wish was not wealth or status; it was simply to look like everyone else, because his disease had made him an object of disgust:

“Good color and good skin, for the people have a strong aversion to me.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

The cure was immediate and complete:

“The angel touched him and his illness was cured, and he was given a good color and beautiful skin.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Then the angel asked what kind of property he liked best, and the narration preserves a small, honest detail about the man’s answer:

“He replied, ‘Camels (or cows).'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

“(The narrator is in doubt, for either the leper or the bald-headed man demanded camels and the other demanded cows)” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

On the narration’s own showing, the leper ended with camels, and the gift came with a prayer:

“So he (i.e. the leper) was given a pregnant she-camel, and the angel said (to him), ‘May Allah bless you in it.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Notice what the leper received: healing first, then property, then a blessing spoken over the property. Everything he had from that day forward began at this moment — a moment he had witnessed with his own eyes, in his own skin.

3. The Bald Man: “Good Hair”

The angel went next to the bald-headed man, whose wish was the same shape as the leper’s — to be cured of the thing that made people turn away from him:

“I like good hair and wish to be cured of this disease, for the people feel repulsion for me.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

His cure, too, was immediate:

“The angel touched him and his illness was cured, and he was given good hair.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

And when he chose cows as the property he liked best, he received them with the same prayer the leper had heard:

“The angel gave him a pregnant cow and said, ‘May Allah bless you in it.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Two men, two disfigurements removed, two herds begun from a single pregnant animal, two blessings pronounced. Neither man had earned any of it; neither had even asked Allah directly — the angel had come to them. Their stories were, at this point, identical in structure: misery, mercy, increase.

4. The Blind Man: “That Allah May Restore My Eye-Sight”

The angel’s third visit was to the blind man, and his answer shows what he valued most. He did not ask for comfort or escape; he asked to see:

“(I like) that Allah may restore my eye-sight to me so that I may see the people.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

And his sight was returned to him as completely as the others’ cures:

“The angel touched his eyes and Allah gave him back his eye-sight.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

For property, his choice was the humblest of the three:

“He replied, ‘Sheep.’ The angel gave him a pregnant sheep.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

A pregnant sheep against a pregnant she-camel and a pregnant cow. The story will show that the size of the gift was never the point. What mattered was what each man would later say about where it all came from.

5. Valleys Filled With Herds

Time passed, and the single animals multiplied beyond anything the three men could have imagined when they stood, sick and poor, before the angel:

“Afterwards, all the three pregnant animals gave birth to young ones, and multiplied and brought forth so much that one of the (three) men had a herd of camels filling a valley, and one had a herd of cows filling a valley, and one had a flock of sheep filling a valley.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

A valley filled with camels. A valley filled with cows. A valley filled with sheep. The increase was not modest; it was the kind of wealth a man builds an identity on — the kind he can start believing he produced himself. That quiet shift, from “Allah gave me” to “look what I have”, is the ground on which the second half of the story stands. The first test had been sickness and poverty. The second test would be gratitude.

6. The Angel Returns in Disguise

The angel came back — not in glory, but in the exact shape of the misery each man had escaped. Disguised as a leper, he stood before the leper and made his plea. Read the plea carefully: he did not beg vaguely. He named the blessing itself, and he asked in the Name of the One who gave it:

“I am a poor man, who has lost all means of livelihood while on a journey. So none will satisfy my need except Allah and then you. In the Name of Him Who has given you such nice color and beautiful skin, and so much property, I ask you to give me a camel so that I may reach my destination.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

A poor man, stranded on a journey, asking for a single camel out of a valley full of camels — and asking in the Name of Him who had given the colour, the skin and the property. The request was deliberately small and deliberately framed: one animal, for Allah’s sake, from the very blessing the giver was being reminded of. There was no cheaper way to pass this test.

7. The Leper Refuses — and Rewrites His Past

The leper’s first answer was the excuse of a busy rich man:

“I have many obligations (so I cannot give you).” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Then the angel, still in disguise, took away his excuse by taking away his anonymity. He reminded him — gently, and in the form of a question — of exactly who he had been and who had changed him:

“I think I know you; were you not a leper to whom the people had a strong aversion? Weren’t you a poor man, and then Allah gave you (all this property).” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

At this point the leper could still have recovered: admitted the truth, confessed the blessing, given the camel. Instead he chose the one answer that turns ingratitude into falsehood. He did not merely refuse a camel; he denied the miracle:

“(This is all wrong), I got this property through inheritance from my fore-fathers.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Inheritance from his forefathers — as if the leprosy, the aversion of the people, the angel’s touch and the pregnant she-camel had never happened. The angel’s reply was not an argument. It was a sentence handed back to the man’s own words: if the story he now told was true, nothing would change; if it was a lie, he would become again what he had been:

“If you are telling a lie, then let Allah make you as you were before.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

8. The Bald Man Answers the Same

The angel then went to the bald man in the shape of a bald man, and the narration compresses the whole visit into a few words, because there was nothing new to record:

“went to the bald man and said to him the same as he told the first one, and he too answered the same as the first one did.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

The same plea, the same obligations, the same invented inheritance — and so the same sentence was pronounced over him:

“If you are telling a lie, then let Allah make you as you were before.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Two men who had received identical mercy gave identical answers. Prosperity had edited their memories in exactly the same way: the years of aversion forgotten, the touch of the angel forgotten, the blessing at the beginning forgotten. All that remained in their telling was property that had somehow always been theirs.

9. The Blind Man Gives Without Counting

Finally the angel, in the shape of a blind man, stood before the third companion and made the same kind of plea — a traveller cut off on his journey, asking for one sheep in the Name of the One who had given him back his sight:

“I am a poor man and a traveler, whose means of livelihood have been exhausted while on a journey. I have nobody to help me except Allah, and after Him, you yourself. I ask you in the Name of Him Who has given you back your eye-sight to give me a sheep, so that with its help, I may complete my journey.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

The blind man’s answer is the heart of the whole story, and it deserves to be read slowly. He began by confessing, word for word, the two facts the other two had denied — that he had been blind, and that he had been poor — and he named Allah as the giver of both the sight and the wealth:

“No doubt, I was blind and Allah gave me back my eye-sight; I was poor and Allah made me rich; so take anything you wish from my property. By Allah, I will not stop you for taking anything (you need) of my property which you may take for Allah’s sake.'” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

Take anything you wish. Not one sheep — anything. Not reluctantly — by Allah, he would not stop him. And note his condition: what was taken was taken for Allah’s sake. The man who had once asked only to see the people now counted his entire valley of sheep as Allah’s property on loan, available to any needy traveller who asked in Allah’s name. Gratitude, in him, was not a feeling he described; it was a hand he opened.

10. The Verdict: Pleasure for One, Anger for Two

Only then did the angel drop the disguise and explain what had really been happening in all three visits:

“Keep your property with you. You (i.e the three men) have been tested, and Allah is pleased with you and is angry with your two companions.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih)

The blind man kept everything — the angel told him to keep his property with him. The two who denied lost what they had lied about, returned to what they had been. The test was never really about a camel or a sheep; those were trivial sums to men who owned valleys. The test was about the tongue and the memory: would the blessed man say “Allah gave me”, or would he say “I inherited”? One sentence of confession preserved a fortune; one sentence of denial dissolved it.

11. The Quran’s Law of Increase and Loss

What happened to the three men is not an isolated incident from an earlier nation. The Quran states the principle behind it as a standing declaration from Allah Himself, addressed to every possessor of a blessing:

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِى لَشَدِيدٌ

“If you express gratitude, I shall certainly give you more, and if you are ungrateful, then My punishment is severe.” (Quran 14:7)

The verse sets the two paths side by side, and the story of the three men walks down both of them. Gratitude — expressed, confessed, acted on — is answered with increase: the blind man ended the story richer in Allah’s pleasure than in sheep. Ingratitude is not treated as a small discourtesy; the verse names it and attaches to it a severe punishment, and the leper and the bald man discovered that the punishment can begin with the blessing itself being taken back. The law also explains why the blind man’s giving was not a loss: what is spent out of gratitude falls under the first half of the verse, not the second.

12. Reading Our Own Blessings in This Story

Few readers will own a valley of livestock, but every reader owns the same two assets the three men were tested on: a blessing received, and a story told about where it came from. Health recovered after illness, work found after desperation, a child, a home, a skill — the modern forms of the camel, the cow and the sheep are endless. The story asks us three plain questions. First: do we confess the blessing, as the blind man did, naming Allah as its giver — the heart of what our article on gratitude (shukr) in Islam explores. Second: when someone asks us for help in Allah’s name, do we answer with our obligations, or with an open hand — remembering that gratitude to Allah and thanking people in Islam grow from the same root, and that the generosity in Islam that Allah loves begins exactly here, with giving from what He gave. Third: have we quietly rewritten any part of our past, turning a mercy we witnessed into an inheritance we claim? The Prophet ﷺ told another story of a man whose account was far darker than these men’s — the subject of our article on the man who killed ninety-nine souls — and even he found the door open when he turned back truthfully. The world, as another narration puts it and our article on the world is green and sweet in Islam discusses, is a trust placed in our hands while Allah watches how we act. The blind man shows what acting well looks like: remember who you were, say who gave, and give.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Who narrated the story of the leper, the bald man and the blind man, and where is it found? Abu Huraira narrated it from the Prophet ﷺ — the narration begins by saying Abu Huraira reported “that he heard Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) saying” — and it is recorded as Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 with the grade Sahih.

Q2. What did each of the three men ask the angel for? The leper asked for “Good color and good skin, for the people have a strong aversion to me”, the bald man asked for good hair so the disease people felt repulsion at would leave him, and the blind man asked “that Allah may restore my eye-sight to me so that I may see the people” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih).

Q3. What property did each man receive, and what did it become? The leper was given a pregnant she-camel, the bald man a pregnant cow, and the blind man a pregnant sheep. The animals multiplied until, in the narration’s words, one man had “a herd of camels filling a valley”, another a herd of cows filling a valley, and the third “a flock of sheep filling a valley” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih).

Q4. Why did the blind man alone keep his blessing? Because he did the opposite of his two companions. When asked for a single sheep, he confessed his past — “I was blind and Allah gave me back my eye-sight; I was poor and Allah made me rich” — and told the traveller to take anything he wished. The angel then declared: “You (i.e the three men) have been tested, and Allah is pleased with you and is angry with your two companions” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3464 — Sahih).

Q5. What does the Quran say about gratitude and ingratitude toward blessings? Allah declares: “If you express gratitude, I shall certainly give you more, and if you are ungrateful, then My punishment is severe.” (Quran 14:7). The story of the three men is that law acted out: the grateful man’s blessing was confirmed to him, while the two who denied their blessings were returned to what they had been.