Acquisitiveness

          The outcomes you receive in your life all depend on how you choose to live it.  Greed and money are big aspects that motivate and sometimes control a person’s actions in their own lives.  Allowing acquisitiveness to take control of you can have serious consequences.  “Hashim’s duty as a citizen was clear: the hair must be restored to its shrine, and the state of equanimity and peace” (Rushdie 43).  But, because of the power of greed, Hashim soon found out how severe of consequences not doing the right thing leads to. 

          The story, The Prophet’s Hair, is part of a collection of short stories in the book East, West, written by Salman Rushdie.  This particular short story was about a man named Hashim and what happens when you allow greed to consume you.  Hashim was a moneylender, who created a large fortune for himself, and “was fond of pointing out that while he was not a godly man he set great store by ‘living honorable in the world’” (Rushdie 41).  But, his good fortune and honorability came to an end the day he found the sacred hair of the Prophet Muhammad. 

          He was getting ready to leave on his boat one morning when he noticed a silver vial with a single strand of human hair on a silver pendant.  He immediately scooped up the vial, changed his plans, and went back to his chamber.  He knew right away that this was the famous relic of the Prophet Muhammad, which was taken by thieves from its sacred shrine.  He knew that this hair was supposed to be returned to the shrine, but gluttony came over him, and he kept it from where it rightfully belonged.  Hashim was really into collecting, he was more interested in the vial than in the sacred hair, and he thought since other collectors bought stolen pieces of art and hid them away, then they would understand what his reasoning for keeping the relic.

          Because of his actions, the relic placed a curse over Hashim and his family.  Hashim was so consumed in his finding that he lost all love and respect for his family.  He turned on his wife, telling her that their marriage had been the worst for many years, which he has had a mistress on the side, and has been seeing prostitutes as well.  Hashim also turned on his children.  He called his son, Atta, a “dope”, for he was lacking in academic ability.  Hashim accused his daughter, Huma, of lasciviousness, because of the fact that she would do into the city barefaced, which was not proper for a Muslim girl to do.  He also turned on his family with physical violence.  His family was horrified by his actions.

          Both Atta and Huma tired to get rid of this relic and have cursed their home.  Atta first tried to get rid of the relic and return it to where it rightfully belonged.  While his father was gone taking care of some business, Atta set out.  But on the way he discovered he had a hole in his pocket, for he had lost the relic.  When Hashim was returning home he once again found the sacred hair.  When he got home he was in a fury, and beat Huma until she told him what had happened.  Next Huma decided that she was going to hire a thief to come take the relic away, since they were unable to get rid of it on their own, that it had to be “stolen”.  She found the “Thief of Thieves”, Sheikh Sín, and offered him all of her and her mother’s jewelry if he was to steal the relic.

          Huma explained to Sheikh how this needed to be done.  Sheikh was supposed to wait until Hashim was asleep and steal the relic, get the jewelry from Huma, and leave the house.  He arrived at their house ready to steal the relic and receive his jewels.  Everything was set and ready to go as planned, until it all went horribly wrong.  Because of Hashim’s greediness, the relic was going to punish his family for good once and for all.  Right as Sheikh was about to take the relic, Atta, who knew of Huma’s plan, began screaming “Thief” as loud as he could right before he died.  He was suffering from a severe blood-clot that was forming around his brain.  Because of what happened to Atta his mother began to scream at the top of her lungs, this in turn woke Hashim.

          Hashim grabbed his swordstick and ran out of his room into the corridor.  He had seen a shadow coming near, thinking it was the thief he shoved the swordstick through the heart of his daughter.  Because Hashim was so completely upset by what he had just done to his daughter, he took the swordstick and killed himself.  His wife pretty much went crazy due to everything that happened to her family, and she was booked into an insane asylum by her brother, the city’s Deputy Commissioner of Police.  The relic had destroyed Hashim’s family due to his own greediness.

          But that wasn’t the last of the relic’s destructive rampage.  Because Sheikh ended up taking the relic from Hashim, it placed misfortune on him and his family as well.  When Sheikh returned home he told his wife what happened.  He decided he was going to vanish for a few days, but he was killed by the Deputy Commissioner’s rifle while he was trying to escape onto the roof-top.  His sons were ruined and his wife regained her sight.

          Because of the choices of these men their greediness took over their lives.  They kept a sacred object from being in its proper place.  It’s actually pretty much just karma.  What act and deeds you perform to others is what ultimately comes back around on you.  Hashim knew what the right thing to do was, “but the moneylender had a different notion” (Rushdie 43).  His actions he chose to partake in turned around and killed his family.  This story is full of satire and shows exactly how not being truthful and honest and turn back around on you in bad karma.