Chapter V: Duties Towards Companions and Friends
It is said that a party of men are like some trees which have got shade but no fruits. Those trees are like those persons who come of no use for the next world except for this world and the benefits of this world disappear soon like the disappearance of shade. Out of them, there are some trees which have got fruits but no shade. They are like the persons who came of no use for good of this world except good of the next world. Some trees have got both fruits and shade and some trees have got neither fruits nor shade like Bakul trees whose thorns pierce clothes and which hnvr pftt we afttabk: tH"gci Tfa»y are like snakes and rats. Hazrat Abu Zarr said : Loneliness is better than a bad companion and a good companion is better than loneliness. God say : When the illiterate call them they say salam, It means : We are safe from your sins and you are safe from our evils. Hazrat Ali said : If a man gives life to your action, keep your religion alive by keeping company with him. Loqman advised his son : O dear son, keep •company with the learned, as heart is then enlivened with wisdom as a land is enlivened with rain-water.
SECTION 2
* THE RIGHTS OF FRIENDSHIP AND BROTHERHOOD
The tie of friendship and brotherhood is like that of husband and wife. As some rights and obligations arise out of wed-lock, so also some rights and obligations arise out of the tie of friendship and brotherhood . These rights are eight.
(1) Right in wealth and properties. The Prophet said : Two friends are like two hands, one of which washes the other.
Similarly friendship is completed when one of them keeps the other, as if they are one and the same and they share the enjoyments of each other. There are three stages of self- sacrifice for each other, (a) The lowest stage is to bring down his friend to the level of a servant and to give him charity at the time of his need from his excess wealth. When a friend falls in want, he should give charity to him without asking from the excess of his wealth. If he drives him to the level of asking, he will then transsgrerss the limit of the demand of friendship, (b) The second
102 The Book of Wordly Usages Vol-II