As they walked further, they reached a desert where Sayyiduna ‘Isa عَـلَيْـهِ الـسَّـلَام piled up some sand and addressed it, ‘O pile of sand! Change into gold by the command of Allah عَزَّوَجَلَّ.’ It immediately turned into gold which he عَـلَيْـهِ الـسَّـلَام divided into three parts and said, ‘One part is mine, the other is yours and the third one is for the one who has taken the third roti.’ Upon hearing this, the man immediately said, ‘O the Prophet of Allah! It was I who has taken the third roti.’ Hearing this he عَـلَيْـهِ الـسَّـلَام said, ‘Take all this gold’, and then left the man behind. 

Wrapping the gold into a shawl the man moved ahead alone. On the way, he came across two other men. As the two men noticed that the man had gold, in order to get all the gold they intended to kill him but he managed to prevent them from doing so by suggesting that the gold he had could be divided into three parts and distributed among them equally. This seemed to satisfy the other two men. He then said, ‘One of us should go to the nearby city with a little gold and buy some food so that we can eat something and then distribute the gold.’ Therefore, one of them went and bought food but, overpowered by his greed, he poisoned the food so that the other two men could die and he would take all the gold.

On the other hand, the other two men had already conspired to kill him as soon as he returned so that they could divide the gold between them equally. When he returned with food, they both murdered him brutally. After this, they happily ate the food which had already been poisoned. As a result, the two men also died writhing and the gold remained lying there.

When Sayyiduna ‘Isa عَـلٰى نَبِـيِّنَا وَعَـلَيْهِ الـصَّلٰوةُ وَالسَّلَام returned along with his companions and came across the dead bodies, he عَـلَيْـهِ الـسَّـلَام pointed to the gold and the dead bodies of the three men and said, ‘See, this is the reality of the world. It is compulsory for you to stay away from it.’ (Ithaf-us-Sadat, vol. 9, pp. 835)

صَلُّوۡا عَلَى الۡحَبِيۡب     صَلَّى اللّٰهُ تَعَالٰى عَلٰى مُحَمَّد