Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
It was reported by Anas that a representative of the poor came to the Prophet and said : I have come to you as a messenger of the poor. He said : Welcome to you and to those from whom you have come. They are a class of people whom I love. He said :
O Messenger God, the rich have taken away all the virtues. They -make pilgrimage but we cannot do it. They make Umrah, but we cannot do it. If they fall all, they spend their excess wealth and gain virtues. The Prophet said : Inform the poor from me. The poor man among you who keeps patience and hopes for virtues will have such fortunes which the rich would not get. (1) The first fortune is that there is a very lofty place in paradise and the inmates will look at it as the people of this earth look at the stars on the firmament. The poor prophets, the poor martyrs and the poor believers will only get it. (2) The second fortune is that the poor will enter paradise half a day (500 years) earlier than the rich. (3) The third fortune is that when the rich man says 'Sobhanallah. Walhamdo Lillah La Ilaha Illah and Allho Akbar' as the poor recite them they will not get equal merits like the poor even though they spend thousands of Dirhams. This is the condition of every vituous act. The representative of the poor returned to them and said what the Prophet had said to him. The poor then said : We are satisfied. This proves that for every divine service, there is additional merit for the poor.
The ultimate goal in this world is to attain the love of God, to seek His pleasure and to tread the path towards Him. It is not possible to achieve these in the midst of heavy engagements. It is true that poverty keeps a man engaged like wealth. To love the world is the real engagement as love of the world and love of God do not unite. He who loves anyone keeps themselves engaged in
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the world. Those who are deprived of the world keep themselves engaged in search of it. If it happens that you have rescued yourself from the love of wealth which is like water in you sight," ' then it is all one whether you have got wealth or not. Every one uses it according to his necessity and to get it in times of necessity is better than not to have it. The hungry man walks in the path of death, not in the path of God. If you are engaged in the management of wealth, it is true that you live far away from the thoughts and anxieties of poverty but you are in the disaster of happiness. The disaster of happiness is more acute than that of adversity. Man cannot be free from it. For this, the companions said : We have been tried by the hardship of sorrows but we remained patient at them.