Remember the Prophet Job (Ayyub) Peace Be Upon Him?The summary of his story went like this:
Job was a pious and wealthy man. He had everything that man can ever want, and was actually grateful for it. So one day, the Lord tested Job’s faith by taking away all of his worldly assets: children, houses, animals and even his physical health, just to see how Job would handle the stress of it all.
One of the ailments that befell on Prophet Job was a sore boils; symptomatic in his rotting flesh. So bad the stench his body gave that nobody other than houseflies came near him and his mourning wife. In turn, the flies infested their eggs in his flesh, and maggots grew and fed on him.
Simply put, Prophet Job’s test was to decompose alive.
Legend has it that Prophet Job took the time to the pick each and every one of the maggots on his flesh, put it aside, before performing his ablutions and offer prayers (again, in thanks to the Lord).
Here’s the kick in the story. After prayers, the Prophet would then crack our common sense by returning each and every maggot back on its original feeding ground: the Prophet’s body.
So, maybe the Prophet had a strange taste in pets as he preferred them wiggling and wriggling on his decomposing body. But here’s what I discovered a while ago:
Maggot therapy (also known as maggot debridement therapy (MDT), is a type of biotherapy involving the intentional introduction by a health care practitioner of live, disinfected maggots (fly larvae) raised in special facilities into the non-healing skin and soft tissue wound(s) of a human or other animal for the purposes of selectively cleaning out only the necrotic tissue within a wound (debridement), disinfection, and promotion of wound healing. [Source]
Eventually, when the tests were over, Job taught us that it’s not his wealth that made him so thankful to the Lord, but it was the other way around, that his faith in the Lord was what got him all his worldly assets in the first place.
And back.
What does Job’s maggots have to do with us?
Prophet Job had a lesson to teach; and that’s pretty obvious and classic. Then again, so did all the maggots in this story. That they weren't there just to spite the Prophet in his ritualistic removal and replacement on his flesh.
Now, between maggots and the Prophets, where can you see yourself in terms of enlightenment and usefulness?
PS: For what it’s worth, I’m only half-good in retelling stories. So there.
