In the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, an Arab scholar was giving a sermon on the virtues of charity (Sadqah), saying: "Only a couple of devils try to stop servants from performing ordinary good deeds, but a swarm of seventy devils pursues a person to stop them from giving charity from their wealth, ensuring that this person fails to give charity by any means." After mentioning this virtue, the Arab scholar encouraged the audience, asking: "Who is there who will defeat these seventy devils and please their True Master?"

A young man stood up from the crowd, his anger flaring up, and he said, "Today, I will inflict a crushing defeat upon the seventy." Saying this, he left the gathering, came to his house, filled a sack with wheat flour that was in a barrel, and was just about to step out with the intention of giving it in charity when he encountered his wife at the door.

Wife: "Where are you going with this flour?"

Young man: "I am going to give it in charity."

Wife: "Come on, quickly put the flour back in the house and get out! You haven't brought anything to eat or drink, and here you are going out to give the house's flour in charity."

The young man quietly put the flour back in the house and returned to sit in the gathering.

Someone asked him, "Did you defeat the seventy devils?"

The young man replied, "إِنِّي هَزَمْتُ الشَّيَاطِينَ وَلَكِنْ جَاءَتْ أُمُّهُمْ فَهَزَمَتْنِي" (Translation: I had defeated all those devils, but their mother arrived out of nowhere and defeated me).