Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
lieu of short- lived ice, as jewel is better than ice. The owner of ice knows it well and is eager to sell it in lieu of jewel. Similarly he knows the world as temporary and therefore accepts the ever lasting next world. The world is short-lived like ice. Ice melts at the touch of sun-shine, but the next world is a jewel without end.
So there should be the knowledge of this world and the next world. The greater this knowledge, thegreater the strength. He whose belief in this is sure and firm sells this world in lieu of the next world and sells his riches and wealth. God says — (9:111)
Surely God purchased from the believers their lives and properties in exchange that they will get Paradise. God even informs us that there is profit in this business in verse — 9:111 — Give good news for your transaction with God which you have carried on. So for the purpose of renunciation, this much of knowledge is necessary that the next world is better than this world and ever lasting. God says about this world: Say, the commodities of this world are but short -lived. He says about the next world : Those who were given knowledge said : Woe to you, God's reward is better — 28 : 80.
ACTION: The action which arises from renunciation is to accept what is better in lieu of what is worse. The business of this buy and sale is called renunciation. Similarly to forsake all the pleasures of this world and to accept what is in the next world is renunciation. To accept God and to reject things other than God is true renunciation.
' Ibn Abi Laila said to the sage Ibn Shabrama : Don't you see that the son of a weaver Abu Hanifa rejects whatever decision we give ? The sage Ibn Shabrama said : I don't know whether he is the son of a weaver or the son of a respectable man. But I know that the world came to him but he fled away from it. The world is fleeing away fromus but we are following it. At the time of the Prophet, the Muslims said : We love our Lord. Had we known what things would bring His love, we would have loved them.
Then God revealed this verse : Had We prescribed for them 'Give your lives or go out of your houses'. They would not obey it except a few — 4 : 66. The Prophet said to Ibn Masud : You are included within those few. Ibn Masud said : We did not know that there are some persons among us who love this world until this verse was revealed — Among you there are some who love this world and some who love the next word. — 3 : 152.
170 THE BOOK OF CONSTRUCTIVE VIRTUES VoI-IV