Stinginess (bukhl)

For al-Sha'rawi, stinginess is withholding from someone in need what God has given you. It is not limited to money: it covers strength to help the weak, knowledge, forbearance and every gift others lack. He holds that the miser dislikes seeing others generous, and that hoarded wealth is lost to its owner because it does not bear fruit. ¹²

Al-Sha'rawi reads the Qur'anic passage on stinginess with God's bounty as a collar placed around the miser's neck on the Day of Resurrection. The more a person withholds from giving, the heavier the collar becomes; had he given a little, the collar would have been lighter. ³Al 'Imran 180

He counts it as stinginess to withhold one's strength from helping the weak, one's knowledge from the one who does not know, and one's patience from the foolish. He gives the example of a teacher who hides the secrets of his craft from his pupils. He holds that the meaning of the verse extends to every material or moral matter. ¹

Al-Sha'rawi links stinginess with concealment. Something that by its nature wants to reach people, whether wealth or knowledge, is blocked when its owner holds it back. What was created to serve people suffers when it is kept from that service. ⁴

In his reading of the verse on the stingy and the humiliating punishment, he takes the miser's concealment of a blessing that could have benefited him and others as making him ungrateful for that blessing. This is al-Sha'rawi's reading, offered as his explanation of the verse. ⁴An-Nisa' 37

Al-Sha'rawi says the miser is the enemy of his wealth, because he does not make it bear fruit: whoever spends from it finds it stored with God, and whoever withholds it leaves the wealth to end where it ends. He cites a hadith about the reciter, the martyr and the rich man, which the book's footnote attributes to al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Khuzayma and Muslim, and says that religion commands spending, not holding back. ²

He describes the miser as one who makes wealth forbidden to himself by piling it up and leaving it to a son who will enjoy it. He says stinginess narrows the miser's own provision, that spending is replaced, and that withholding does not deceive God. ⁵

No other view on stinginess is set out in these pages, and no academic reading is given; one would need a named source (needs_source). Everything in this entry is al-Sha'rawi's reading.