2. Al-Baqara

O You who have faith, do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing dis- comfort.Ibn ʿAbbās said, �Do not void your charity by counting it a favor toward God.� God is saying, �O you have faith, who have placed your hands in the chains of Our servanthood and have clung to the rope of Our protection! The path of servanthood is not that of gazing on yourself and counting your obedience a favor to Us, for everything you do comes from Our success-giving and Our desire. When your heart was opened up, We opened it. When you found success, We gave it. When you gave comfort to the poor, We willed that. We made all of that happen, so all should be counted as Our favor. All acting is Ours, and all attending to things is Ours.�BarrāÌ ibn ʿāzib said, �On the Day of the Moat I saw God's Messenger when he was saying these words of Ibn RawāḤa:�O God, if not for You, we would not have been guided,we would not have given charity, we would not have prayed.So send down tranquility upon us,and firm up our feet for the encounter.�He is saying, �O God, were it not for Your solicitude, how could we have found the way to the street of tawḤīd? Were it not for Your success-giving, how could we have had the ability to do good works?� When a poor wretch counts obeying God a favor to Him, this is because he has lost the path of servanthood. He gives weight to his own obedience and sees it as large, so he does not turn the eyes of his heart and head away from it. In the path of chivalry, seeing one's own obedi-ence is idol-worship, and looking back at it is duality itself.If you are martyred a hundred times a day in God's pathyou'll still be an idol-worshiper if you see yourself in the midst. [DS 708]It has also been said that do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing discomfort means to void your charity by laying favors on those who ask. He is saying, �Do not ruin your charity by counting it a favor to the poor.

Satan promises you poverty and commands you to indecency, and God promises you forgiveness from Him, and bounty.Satan promises you poverty because of his poverty, and God promises you forgiveness because of His generosity.Satan himself is poor toward the Real, so he promises poverty, for that is what he has and that is what his hands reach. His harvest was burned, so he wants the harvest of others to burn as well. The Lord of the Worlds, who is forgiving and servant-caressing, promises forgiveness and gener- osity. Yes, everyone does what is worthy of him, and the pot pours what it has inside. Each acts according to his own manner [17:84]. The Lord's invitation is what He says: �He invites you so that He may forgive you some of your sins� [14:10]. Satan's call is what He says: �He invites his party only so that they may be among the companions of the Blaze� [35:6]. Satan invites to avarice and eagerness for this world, and that in reality is poverty. God invites to contentment and seeking the afterworld, and that is nothing but wealth.The respect due to wealth in the religion is greater, for in this world, the person is content and has no need for the creatures, whispering secretly with the Real in his heart. In the next world he will dwell in the scented garden of bounty and generosity and the ocean of face-to-face vision, drowned in the Greatest Light.Shaykh al-Islām Anṣārī said, �Wealth is three things: wealth of property, wealth of disposi- tion, and wealth of heart.�Wealth of property is three things: The lawful is a tribulation, the unlawful a curse, and the excessive punishment.�Wealth of disposition is three things: contentment, satisfaction, and chivalry.�Wealth of heart is three things: an aspiration greater than this world, an object of desire better than the next world, and a yearning for the vision of the Patron.�

He gives wisdom to whomsoever He wills.It has been said that wisdom has a reality and a fruit. The reality of wisdom is recognizing an affairas suited for the affair, putting a thing in its own place, recognizing everyone in his own frame- work, seeing the end of every statement at its beginning, and recognizing the inwardness of any statement from its outwardness. The fruit of wisdom is balancing interaction with people between tenderness and cajolery, balancing interaction with oneself between fear and hope, and balancing interaction with the Real between awe and intimacy.Wisdom is a light. When its ray shines upon you, it adorns the tongue with right remem- brance, the heart with right thought, and the bodily members with right activity. Then when you speak, you speak with wisdom, snatching away hearts and making spirits your prey. When you reflect, you reflect with wisdom, flying like a falcon, roaming in the highest Dominion, and making a nest only in the Presence of At-ness.May I be a ransom for the men dwelling in the Unseen, their secret cores roaming in all that is there!*Give the strong wings of wisdom to the peacock of the Throne and here in this place of the snare you'll see its nest in joy.If you stroll toward the Holy Presence with exaltedness,you'll see steeds coming forth from the city of the Lord. [DS 706]Yes indeed. And when someone like this acts, he acts with wisdom-coming together with the palisades of the Beloved's approval, sacrificing his desire to God's desire, seeing his intimacy in remembering Him, keeping his gaze in accordance with His gaze, resting in his remembrance no matter what arrives; sometimes burned by passion for Him in the playing field of majesty in the station of need, sometimes at ease with His gentleness in the garden of union on the throne of joy.At times those black locks raise the swords of severity,at times those sweet lips light the candles of gentleness. O You whose perfection has paid purses to the losers at dice!O You whose beauty has sewn the wallets of the destitute!