Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
man's spending a little than that of a rich man possessing enormous riches : The Prophet said : To spend a dirhams becomes sometimes better than spending one lac dirhams in the way of God. He was questioned : O Messenger of God, how does it happen. He said : A certain rich man spends one lac dirhams out of his enormous riches and a certain poor man possessing only two dirhams spends one dirhams in charity with a cheerful heart. In this circumstance, the spending of one dirhams by the poor man becomes better than the charity of one lac dirhams by the rich man.
There are three stages of hoarding provisions: The first stage is the highest and it is the stage of the truthful-not to hoard food except for one day and one night. The second stage is the stage of the God fearing man-to hoard food for 40 days. Beyond this, he becomes guilty of cherishing long hope. (3) The third stage is that of all religious men to hoard food for one year. This is the lowest stage. He who hoards beyond it is included within the ordinary people. The Prophet divided food-stuffs among his wives in this way. He used to give some of his food-stuffs for a year and some for one day and one night. Hazrat Ayesha and Hafsa are included within the second class.
METHOD OF RECEIVING UNASKED FOR GIFTS: The poor shall have to look to three things for accepting the gifts of others — (1) source of gifted thing, (2) object of the gifts, (3) and the necessity of acceptance. With regard to the source of gift, the money of gift must be lawful and above doubt. Regarding the object of gifts the giver might have got many purposes — to get self-satisfaction to search the love of the receiver, to get merits from God, to get name and fame etc. If it is a present, there is no harm to accept it. The Prophet used to accept present from some people and reject it from others. He used to accept presents from the Quraish, Saqafi, Dausee and the Refugees and Ansars. Once a purse of 50 coins was presented to Fa the Musolli who said that Ata had recited this Hadis : If a thing is presented without asking and it is rejected God's gift is rejected. Then he took one coin out of the purse and returned the rest. The Saint Hasan Basari used to receive presents from his disciples. The saint Tamim used to receive small gifts from his disciples, not too much or rich presents. The saint Bashar Hafi said : I do not accept presents from anybody except Sarri Sakti as his renunciation seems to be
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162 THE BOOK OF CONSTRUCTIVE VIRTUES VoI-IV