Poverty (faqr) in Sufi ethics

Poverty is the subject of the first half of the Book of Poverty and Renunciation, the fourth book of the quarter of saving things in Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din; the second half concerns renunciation. ^{4 1 5} Al-Ghazali defines it as "lacking what one needs"; lacking what one does not need is not called poverty. ¹

Al-Ghazali holds that everything other than God is poor in this sense, because it needs the continuation of its existence from God's bounty, and that there can be only one who is rich in existence. ^{1 6} But here he does not mean absolute poverty, since the servant's needs are countless; he means poverty of wealth in particular. ⁶

At the start of this half he lists its contents: the reality of poverty; its merit in general; the merit of the content and satisfied poor; the superiority of the poor over the rich; the conduct of the poor man in his poverty and in accepting gifts; the prohibition of begging without necessity; the amount of wealth that makes begging forbidden; and the states of those who ask. ¹

Al-Ghazali distinguishes five states in one who lacks wealth, and names each: ²

1. Renunciation (zuhd): he would dislike wealth if it came to him, be troubled by it and flee from it, wary of its harm and distraction; he is the renunciant, and this is the highest. ²
2. Contentment (rida): he neither desires it enough to rejoice at receiving it nor dislikes it enough to be troubled; he is the content one. ²
3. Satisfaction (qana'a): he prefers having wealth to lacking it, but his desire is not strong enough to make him seek it; if it comes freely he takes it. He is the satisfied one. ^{2 7}
4. Covetousness (hirs): he stops seeking only because he cannot, and would seek it if he found a way, or he is busy seeking it; he is the covetous one. ⁷
5. Destitution (idtirar): what he lacks is something he cannot do without, like the hungry man without bread or the naked man without clothing; he is the destitute. ⁷

Beyond these five he places a state higher than renunciation: that having wealth and lacking it are equal to him, so that he neither rejoices nor is troubled. He illustrates it with what he relates of Aisha: a hundred thousand dirhams came to her and she distributed them that same day; her maid said she might have bought a dirham's worth of meat for them to break their fast, and she replied, "Had you reminded me, I would have." ^{7 3} He calls one in this state "self-sufficient" (mustaghni) rather than "rich" (ghani), so that "the Rich" remains the name of the One who has absolute wealth, since this servant is free of need for money but not of need for God's continuing help. ^{3 8}

Al-Ghazali says people differed on this; he presents the views and then gives his own detailed answer: ⁹

• Page numbers are from the Shamela file, not the printed book.
• Ibn 'Ata' here is the Baghdad Sufi mentioned with al-Junayd; he is not linked because the museum has no matching entry for him yet.