Virtues of the righteous
Beautiful words about magnanimity and generosity
- One of the scholars said, “I do not like to refuse someone in his need with which he has turned to me. For if he is noble, I will preserve his honour, and if he is vile, I will protect my honour from him.”
- It is said, “The guest of a noble man is noble.”
- Ibrahim ibn al-Junaid said, “There are four qualities which a noble person should not disdain, even if he is a ruler: to stand up from his seat for his father, to service his guest, to serve a theological scholar from whom he acquires knowledge and to ask about what he does not know.”
- Abdullah ibn Mubarak said, “The generosity of oneself expressed in the rejection of other’s property is more esteemed than generosity expressed through the donation of one's own property to others.”
Stories about selflessness, magnanimity and generosity
Stories were narrated from the righteous predecessors that show the ultimate altruism, benevolence and generosity they reached, including:
1. It is said that because of the slander of a man named Ghulam Khalil against the Sufis, the caliph ordered that their heads be cut off. As for Junaid al-Baghdadi , he was concealed since as a jurist, he used to give fatwas according to the madhab of Abu Thawr [1]. As for Shahham , Raqqam , al-Nuri and other groups of people also, they were arrested. A special leather mat was spread out before them, over which they were to be beheaded. Then al-Nuri stepped forward. The swordsman asked him, “Do you know what you are in a hurry for?” When he answered in the affirmative, the executioner again asked, “What made you hurry?” al-Nuri replied, «I prefer that my comrades live at least a little longer.
My companions prefer me to live longer.» Perplexed, the executioner then went and handed the whole matter over to the caliph. And the caliph sent those arrested to the judge (qadi) to study their case. The judge asked Abu Husayn al-Nuri questions about fiqh, to which he gave reliable answers. Then al-Nuri continued, “And further, Almighty Allah has servants who stand up for God and when they speak, they speak only of Him” and uttered words that caused the judge to weep. The judge told the caliph, “If these people are indeed heretics, then there is probably not a single true believer on earth.”
2. It is said that Ali ibn Fudayl used to buy from the merchants in his locality. He was told, “If you went to the market, you could have bought more cheaply.” In response, he said, «These people came to us, hoping to benefit from us.»
3. Abul Hasan al-Bushanji , while in the latrine, called his student and said to him, «Take this shirt from me and give it to so-and-so.» When they asked him, “Couldn’t you have waited until you left the latrine?” He answered, “I was not sure that my nafs would not later change this decision.”
4. Qays ibn Sa`d ibn `Ubadah was asked, «Have you seen anyone more generous than yourself?» He replied, “Yes. In the desert we once stopped at (the place of) a certain woman. Then her husband arrived. She told him that guests had come. The husband brought a camel and slaughtered it and said that it was for us. The next day, he brought another camel, slaughtered it and told us to do with it as we wished. We said, ‘We have only eaten some of the meat of the camel you slaughtered for us yesterday.’
He then said, ‘I do not treat my guests with yesterday's food.’ We stayed with him for two or three days, for it was raining, and every day he repeated the same thing. When we were ready to leave, we left a hundred dinars at his house and said to his wife, ‘Ask your husband for forgiveness for us,’ and left his house. At the height of the midday sun, we heard the cry of a man shouting after us, ‘Stop, O mean horsemen!’ Have you put a price on my hospitality?’ Then he caught up with us and said, ‘You absolutely must take this money back!’»
5. They say that Abdullah ibn Ja`far , when travelling to his farm in the country, stopped to rest near a grove of date palms belonging to certain people. A black servant was working in the grove. They brought him food and at that time a dog jumped the fence and approached the servant. He threw it a round of bread which it ate up. Then he threw it a second and a third round. The dog ate these up too. Abdullah ibn Ja`far looked at the man and asked, “O servant, what is your food for the day?” He replied, «What you have seen (that is, three loaves of bread).»
Abdullah asked, “And why did you favour this dog over yourself?” And the servant replied, “There are no dogs hereabouts. This dog came hungry from far away and I did not want to deny it.» Abdullah asked, “What will you do today?” He replied, «Today I will go hungry.» Then Abdullah ibn Ja`far said, “People chide me for my generosity. This man is more generous than me.” Abdullah ibn Ja`far bought the servant, this garden and everything therein and then freed this servant and gave him the garden.
6. Mutarrif ibn Shikhhir said, “When one of you wants me to fulfill any of your needs, may he pass a note on to me. Truly, I do not like to see abjectness on someone’s face out of need.”
7. It is said that someone turned to Hasan ibn Ali ibn Abu Talib . Hasan gave him fifty thousand dirhams and five hundred dinars and told him to fetch a carrier. And when he arrived with the carrier, Hasan gave him his caftan and added, «This will be a payment to the carrier on my part.»
8. When Imam ash-Shafi`i was near death, he said, «Tell such-andsuch a person to wash my body.» However, the man was away at that time. When he returned from the journey the words of the imam were conveyed to him. He asked that the notebook of Imam ash-Shafi`i be brought. In it was written the imam’s debt in the amount of seventy thousand dirhams. The man paid off Imam ash-Shafi`i’s debt and said, «This is my washing of him.»
9. The righteous as-Sari as-Saqati left his house on a holiday and met a person of high position. Al-Sari greeted him unforthcomingly. He was told, «This is a very important person.» He responded, “I recognized him but it is transmitted from the Prophet that, ‘when two Muslims meet, a hundred mercies are apportioned between them: ninety of them are intended for the one who is more affable.’ And I wanted him to receive the most.»
10. One of the righteous said, “One very cold day, I went to Bishr ibn al-Harith and fou quddisa sirruhu Arabic blessing), on such days people dress more warmly but you, on the contrary, are unclothed.” He replied, “I remembered the poor and in what a difficult situation they were in. I did not have anything to comfort them with. Therefore, I wanted to join in enduring the cold with them.”
[1] Abu Savr was a fakih who united in his madhhab the fiqh of Imams Abu Hanifa and ash-Shafii .
FROM THE BOOK “VIRTUES OF THE RIGHTEOUS” BY SHEIKH AHMAD-AFANDI MUFTI DAGESTAN
