Chapter IV: Poverty and Renunciation
Abu Solaiman Darani said : I heard many sayings of many sages about the meaning of renunciation, but the meaning of renunciation according to my opinion is to give up what keeps you away from God. Then he recited the verse : None but he who comes to God with a sound mind will get salvation — 26 : 89. He said that the meaning of sound mind is that mind which has got not thought excpet God. According to him renunciation can be classed into three — obligatory, optional and safe.
Ibrahim-bin- Adham said : To take recourse to renunciation from unlawful things is obligatory, from greed of lawful things is optional and from doubtful things is safe. Imam Malek once was asked : What is renunciation. He said : Taqwa or God fear. There is renunciation regarding wealth and riches. There are different stages about them. The highest stage is the renunciation of Jesus Christ. He used once a piece of stone at pillow. The devil came to him and said : Have you renounced to world. Jesus Christ said :
What thing of the world have you found in me ? The devil said :
You have taken a stone under your head for comfort At this he cast off the stone and said : Take what I have thrown for you.
It is said that Hazrat Ihya used to wear jute bag. By wearing thin and soft cloth, he might have felt joy and his passion sati- fied. Some places of his body were wounded owing to use of rough bag. His mother saw this and adviced him to take robe of wool. When he did this, God revealed to him : O Yahya, you have preferred the world. He began to weep at this, threw off the woollen gown and again took to jute bag.
The sage Ahmed said that the renunciation of Wais Karani was real. He used to sit in jute bag." Jesus Christ once enjoyed the shadow of the wall of a person. When the owner of the wall removed him from that place, he said : You have not removed me _but God being dissatisfied removed me from this shade of your wall which I was enjoying.
RENUNCIATION OF NECESSITIES OF LIFE: -The necessities of livelihood are limited, but the things which are not encessary are unlimited. So discusion of necessary things is necessary. There are six kinds of necessary things — (1) food. (2)
cloth, (3) house, (4) furniture (5) wife, (6) wealth and honour.
(1) Food: Lawful food is necessary for a man so as to keep his backbone erect, but it has got varieties and dimensions. To
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restrict them is renunciations. There are three stages of renunciation regarding time. The highest stage is to remain satisfied with that quantity of food which keeps the backbone erect. What he gets for day time, he does not store it up for the night. The second stage is to store food grains for 40 days and the third stage is to store them for one year. Thosewho are weak in renunication-adopt this course. He who stores up food grains beyond one year can haredly be called one who renunciated the world