Ali Hafed

“My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures…” [Proverbs 2:1-4]

Ali Hafed was a prosperous Persian farmer living in India who owned a large and beautiful section of land with orchards, streams, and fertile fields. He was a happy and contented man until one day a Buddhist priest came to visit and told him tales of other farmers who’d become tremendously wealthy from discovering diamonds.

After hearing this, Ali Hafed became obsessed with thoughts and dreams of finding diamonds. Eventually, he sold his farm, left his family with relatives, and began searching for diamonds. Ali Hafed spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent, then Europe, in search of these elusive gleaming jewels. Finally worn out and penniless, in a fit of despondency he threw himself into the Bay of Barcelona in Spain and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought Ali Hafed’s farm happened to be passing a small stream on the property when suddenly his eye caught a bright sparkle of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down and picked up a good-sized crystalline stone. He took it home and put it on his mantel as an interesting curiosity. Several weeks later a visitor spotted the stone, looked closely at it, weighed it in his hand and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he’d found. When the farmer said he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him that he’d probably found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The skeptical farmer said that his stream was full of such stones. Not as large as the one on the mantel, but they were sprinkled generously along the stream bottom.

The farm that Ali Hafed had sold to go in search of diamonds turned out to be the Golconda Mines of India, for years the most productive diamond mine in the world, providing some of the largest diamonds in the English and Russian crown jewels. Ali Hafed had owned acres of diamonds but had sold his prosperous farm for practically nothing in order to look for diamonds elsewhere.

Real happiness is much closer than most people think. To find the greatest treasure, you need to look no further than the Word of God.